


Teach me

by Vanilla_rose



Category: None - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-16
Updated: 2019-09-20
Packaged: 2020-10-20 04:34:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 41,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20669399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vanilla_rose/pseuds/Vanilla_rose
Summary: A story about a 17 year old boy who’s trying to juggle his difficult home life and the fact that’s he’s dating the new substitute maths teacher. Read to find out how that all turns out.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Look, I just wanted to write something so I did. Sorry if it’s shit.

"Christopher, Claire. Come downstairs, I'm ready to go." mum yells up the stairs.

"Chris, will dad be there again?" I look down at Claire and sigh.

"Yeah, he will." Claire says oh very quietly.

I kneel to her level so she can really look at me.

"If it gets too much, I'll drive us home. Yeah?" She smiles and nods her head.

Whenever we see dad out of the house mum dresses in low-cut short dresses. Trying to win him back for good. It never works though. They always end up screaming at each other about something.

We get to the pub where dad practically lives. It's the roughest place in our town because it's where you can get alcohol the cheapest. I've seen so many fights outside of this pub over the years. It's all I can think about when I look at it from across the street.

"Why aren't you guys more excited? You haven’t seen your dad in... how long has it been?" She looks at me through her painted eyes. I hate how she dresses up for him, like he's worth something.

"Wednesday morning. After he slept at our house."

"You saw him?" It was so obvious they were just hooking up that night even though they're married. To be fair, they hardly act like they're married with dad coming and going as he pleases and mum always starting arguments with him.

"Come on, let's just go."

Mum walks across the road, not bothering to wait for us.

"Chris, how come mum doesn't stop, look and listen before she crosses the road?" I hold Claire's hand and safely cross the road with her.

"Um, she never learnt it in school."

I walk into the pub still holding Claire's hand. I have to look for which table mum and dad are sat at, when I see them and slowly walk over to their table.

We sit down and neither of them acknowledge us, as per usual.

Claire starts to tug on mum's dress.

"Mummy, mummy?"

"What, what is it?" She snaps.

Every time she talks to Claire like that, I want to shout at her so badly but she'd never listen to me. She'd just yell at me for being disrespectful, then dad would join in and that never ends up well. So I have told hold my tongue.

"In school we learnt that the only safe way to cross the road is to 'stop, look and listen'." She looks at Claire with a horrible death stare.

"Oh really, and why does that matter?" She asks in a horrible pointed tone.

"When you crossed the road just now. You didn't stop look or listen and I don't want you to get run over." She says, clearly concerned.

"Claire honey, daddy and I are having a very important conversation so can you shut up please."

Dad intervenes.

"Why do you bother bringing them if you ignore them the whole time?" He asks.

"I think it's important for them to see their father, you clearly don't though."

"How do you even know that I am the father? You're such a whore they could be anyone's." They start to argue about mum's sexual history which is not an argument I haven't heard before.

My go to when they start arguing like this in front of us is to leave. Go anywhere else. I've been doing it since I was 7 and the method is yet to fail me.

"I'll take you home now." I take Claire's hand again and we walk to the car.

"Chris?" She asks in the car.

"Yes."

"Why do we have to see daddy every week?"

"To make mum happy."

"But... mummy's never happy." I sigh. Claire is only 7. She really shouldn't be thinking let alone saying this stuff at her age. In her defence it is completely true.

"I know. But it sounds like you learnt about road safety in school today. How was that?" Her face instantly lights up.

"It was so fun. We got to go on a walking trip in town. My partner was Jessica, when we stopped for lunch, we braided each other’s hair."

"How does that work?" I love hearing about what Claire gets up to during the day.

"She braided mine then I did hers. We didn't have any hairbands, so they fell out. But that's ok because they looked really, really cool."

"I bet they did look cool. Did you do anything else?"

"No, we only had the walking trip today. What did you do?"

"Uhh, just the usual, maths, english, history, you know. All the boring subjects." Claire then proceeds to argue that history is not boring and uses the fact that Egyptians used to worship cats to back herself up. I'm not sure how much is true of what she's saying but it's certainly interesting to listen to.

We get back home and I notice that the picture of mum and dad that usually hangs next to the mirror in the hallway has been smashed and now the frame in in pieces on the floor. That explains why mum was shouting last night and then there was a smashing noise. She was probably on the phone to him.

"Right what's the time? It's almost nine. Time for bed."

"Ok, only if you read me a story." I smile.

"Ok."

I wait for Claire to get into her pyjamas and brush her teeth. I walk in and sit on the stool next to her bed. It's way too small for me as it is for a child, but she insists that I sit on the stool.

"Which story would you like tonight?" We don't have any storybooks anymore, they all got mouldy because I stupidly left the three, I used to have on the kitchen table and mum manged to spill milk all over them. So instead of reading to her, I make up stories. I've had to tell a few so many times that I remember them now almost word for word.

"Can I tell the story tonight?" She asks

"Ok, but if I fall asleep that means you'll have to carry me into my bed."

"What!? I can't do that, you're way too heavy." She laughs.

"Ok, I guess I'll have to try my best not to fall asleep." 

"So, the story starts with a girl who has a pet dragon."

"Ok."

"The dragon can shoot fire that goes a hundred million miles long and the girl has magic powers and then she saves the prince from the tower." I'm so lost. Where did this prince come from?

"How?"

"Um, she gets the dragon to hover above the princes window and so he can climb onto the wing and then they can kiss."

"Wait, who is kissing who? The dragon and the prince or the girl and the prince?"

"Ew, the girl and the prince, obviously. Then they fly way from the evil witch. The witch has blond hair and wears sparkly dresses. And she shouts all the time." My smile gets smaller. It's quite clear that the evil witch is mum.

"Where do the prince and the girl go?" She yawns.

"They go to a field and there are lots of goats there. They spend the rest of their lives riding the goats and eating honey sandwiches."

"The dragon as well?" She starts to blink slower and slower.

"The dragon doesn't ride goats; the dragon sits in a tree and learns how to read."

"Getting tired?" I ask.

"A little."

"Ok, goodnight Claire."

Smiling at her and turn the bedside lamp off. I have a shower and get into bed too. I would really like it if I could just drift off to sleep but I can't stop thinking about what will happen when mum gets home. If she wakes up Claire, then I'll have to get her back to sleep again. I hate doing that because if mum doesn't go straight to sleep then it keeps waking Claire up and unsettling her. On the worst nights Claire cries, which makes me want to cry. It'll be even worse if dad is with her. If dad comes home with her then I'll probably have to take Claire out of the house which I hate doing because I never know when it's ok to come back home and obviously it's not good for Claire to be woken up in the middle of the night.

I am probably having a hard time getting to sleep because it's only like 9:40. It's just difficult getting to sleep when I can't stop obsessing over how tonight is going to pan out. I can never get to sleep on a Friday.


	2. Chapter 2

I wake up to my phone ringing and its mum. I answer and immediately feel sick.

"Hello."

"Is your dad home?" She slurs down the phone. I can hear her stomping down the street through the phone.

"Um, I don't think so."

"Well don't be useless, fucking check." I sigh.

"Ok, I'll see if he's on the couch."

I walk downstairs quietly and see dad face down on the couch, drooling.

"Yeah, he's here."

"Asshole!" She yells. "I'm coming home, and I'm pissed." I assume she means drunk and angry.

"Mum, where are you?" I'm going to see if I can find her. Don’t get me wrong, mum is useless, but it seems that things seem to work better when she’s around, so I’d rather not have her lost or dead. 

"I'm outside the... the place. Why does it matter to you?"

"Just making sure you're safe." I hang up.

I hate leaving Claire home alone with dad, but I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. It's hardly fair, but I have to find mum.

I drive around for a bit before I find mum stumbling along the seafront. I stop the car and try to walk next to her. It's pretty hard when she's stumbling so bad.

"Mum, come on, let's go home." I hold her shoulders lightly, but she immediately moves away from me. This isn't going to be easy.

"No, I can find my own way." Somehow, she's still wearing her heels. Considering how bad her balance is when she's drunk it's got to be a miracle that she hasn't broken an ankle yet.

"I'm trying to help you, just get in the car please."

"Fuck off."

"This is my last offer. I'll leave you here."

"Good, you're pissing me off." I sigh.

"Mum, please. Just get in the car." She starts walking faster.

"I know my way home you little shit, fuck off." I stop trying to walk alongside her.

I look away from her. It makes it easier to pretend that nothing is wrong if I look away from her. My eyes get stuck to the sea and I notice the small, salty breeze. I've always found the sea so calming, every time I look at it, I get this weird feeling that everything is going to be ok. I get an urge to go onto the sand, so I take my shoes and socks off and walk onto the beach. The cold sand always feels so refreshing under my feet. I take a deep breath of the cool spring air before I start walking along the beach.

I end up walking to some benches that are under a shelter and sit there quietly for a bit. I know I should be going home, or making sure mum is fine but there's something about the beach tonight that I can't get away from, it's magnetic. Someone wearing dark clothes walks past me, interrupting my train of thought.

"Hi, is anyone sat here." He's not slurring but I can tell he's drunk which kind of ruins my new found calm state.

"No."

"Cool, I'm going to sit here." I smile to be polite even though it's too dark for him to see my face.

"Ok." 

He doesn't say anything for a while and neither do I. We're both just staring at the sea. I wonder what he's thinking about. I really hope he doesn't want to stab me.

"What's the time?" He asks, out of nowhere.

"It's... 12:46" He looks me up and down, but I don't look back at him.

"How old are you?"

"17, how old are you?"

"26. Why are you out so late? It's a school night isn't it?" He, surprisingly, doesn't sound threatening.

"I was trying to take my mum home and it's a Friday night."

"Oh shit. How much time is it until the 1st? You know, in days." Yeah, he's defiantly drunk.

"Like a week and a half."

"Fuck. I start work then and I really don't want to."

Neither of us say anything for a while.

"Why don't you want to go to work?"

"I didn't want the job, my stupid brother got it for me." He says with disgust.

"He got you a job? That's nice of him."

"You know what, you're right. That is a nice thing for him to do. Maybe it will be better if I just stop talking."

I know I should have left by now but... I don't want to leave, and I can't figure out why. It's weird that I'd even talk to him in the first place really, he's a stranger. To be honest I think it's because people don't usually approach me and it's quite nice to think someone has any kind of interest in me.

"So, why are you here?" Every time he asks me a question I nervously smile. All his questions are catching me off guard and I can't figure out why. It's not like he's asking me questions I have to think about.

"I was trying to take my mum home. Why are you here?"

"I don't know. I'm drunk, bored and don't know how to get home from here." I hesitate.

"Where do you live?" I can probably give him directions or something.

"An apartment of flats. I know it's by the beach because you can see it from the balcony." Wow, a beach view apartment with a balcony. He must have lots of money.

"I know where that is. I can give you a ride if you'd like."

"I don't know you." I present my hand for him to shake and he grabs my hand.

"I'm Christopher."

"I'm Andrew."

"Will you get a ride with me now, Andrew?" He shrugs.

"Sure, fuck it. I wasn't really too bothered anyway."

"Ok, my car's just up here."

He follows me to the car, and I realise this is my chance to actually look at him because of the streetlights. But I get too scared and carry on looking at the floor. We get in the car together and I awkwardly put my shoes and socks back on before we go anywhere. I start the car and Andrew turns on the radio, some sort of techno remix comes on and he grunts in disgust.

"Is this the kind of shit you listen too?"

"This is the radio; I don't listen to this."

"Oh, what kind of music do you listen too?"

"I don't know, I guess I don't listen to music." He sits up from his slouching position and looks at me.

"How do you not listen to music?"

"Don't have enough time." I shrug.

"We have to meet up sometime and I'll show you some real music."

"That would be nice."

Unfortunately, we get to Andrew's block of flats. I look over to him in the darkness and he's staring at me. I can sort of see him now. I get nervous and look away because he's actually kind of hot.

"Will you come in with me?"

"Why?"

"I don't know, so you can you walk me up the stairs. I'm drunk." I smile.

"Sure."

When we get into the building, I can't help but look at him. He notices that I'm looking at him and he turns his body to me and looks back. Andrew has slightly wavy, dark brown hair it's long enough for him to need to push it back, but it barely reaches his jawline. He has deep hazel eyes to match. I've seen lots of people with brown eyes, but Andrew's are defiantly hazel, which I don't think I've seen before. He's just smiling at me and it's making my stomach feel weird which is annoying because I don't even know him. I start to realise that he's more beautiful than he is hot. I think it's his eyes that make him more beautiful than hot.

He's wearing black jeans, a plain t-shirt and a black denim jacket. He looks nice in it. As I'm looking him up and down my eyes linger at his waist, the way his jeans are resting on his body is quite possibly one of the most attractive things I've ever seen. The realisation that his clothes are so much nicer than mine starts to sink in. I bet I look like a joke next to him. His clothes are all really nice and mine are super old and most of them have holes in them, there's no way I compare. I look up to his face again and he's still looking right back at me. I get embarrassed again and look at the floor.

We walk up the stairs together and it soon becomes clear that he doesn't need my help. I wonder why he wanted me to come in if he didn't really need help up the stairs. When we get to his apartment he stands at the door, not opening it, just staring at me. It's still difficult to hold his gaze so I can’t help but pull my eyes away again. 

"Are you not going to go in?"

"What's your number?" He asks getting his phone out.

"Why?"

"So, we can hang out when I'm sober."

"But... we don't know each other."

"Don't be such a square." I hesitate for a second. It's not like I have anything to lose.

"Fine." I tell him my phone number.

"Thanks for taking me home, you're actually really nice and it's such a bonus that you're hot." He's defiantly just saying that because he's drunk.

"Thank you." He leans in to kiss me.

I don't know this person. What do I do? What do I do? He's quite a bit taller than me which is honestly just tempting me more. Fuck it. I kiss him. By the time I expect the kiss to end he puts his tongue in my mouth and we start really kissing, like how people kiss on TV. He puts his hand in my hair and pulls it a little and it feels so good which is weird because it should hurt. I've never kissed anyone before so maybe that's what's supposed to happen. It's not how I thought it would be, his stubble is rubbing against my chin and upper lip, I love it. It feels really good. He pulls away. When he looks at me, he just smiles whilst I'm sure I look a mixture of shocked and embarrassed.

"I'll see you later, Chris." I just nod and walk down the stairs.

I don't hear him go into the apartment. I know he's staring at me. This is all because he's drunk. It's just the alcohol.

What did I just do? What was I thinking? I don't know this guy and I just gave him my number and kissed him. What if he's a serial killer?

I drive home and it's like I'm on a cloud or something. Nothing feels real after what just happened which is so stupid but it's the only way, I can describe how I feel. I don't even know why I can't stop thinking about it, I mean the amount of stuff that happens to me daily is practically nothing compared to kissing some guy I'll probably never see again. I'm sure I'll get over myself in a few days.

When I get home the door has been left open. At least mum found her way home. Dad is in the exact same position as when I left the house maybe 45 minutes ago. I walk upstairs and check on Claire to see if she's woken up or anything. She looks fine, still asleep which is the main thing. As much as I don't want to, I still check on mum, just to make sure she's still breathing. The moment I see her I know why she wouldn't let me drive her home, she wanted to buy more alcohol. She has passed out with an empty bottle of wine in her hand. I take the wine away from her and check her pulse. Still alive. I turn off her light and go back to bed.

Tonight, could've gone better but it was certainly one of the more successful Friday nights I've had. Wandering back into my room I stop myself by the mirror. Why would someone so attractive as Andrew want me. I'm kind of pale so I look half dead. My eyes are blue which should look fine, but because of how pale I am they just add to the half dead look. I don't actually hate how my hair looks, it's kind of mop-like but I've learnt how to make it look ok. The longer I stare at myself in the mirror the more it baffles me why the hell Andrew kissed me.


	3. Chapter 3

I've woken up before my alarm so there's not much for me to do other than stare at my celling. The weekend went very slowly this week, like it always does. When dad woke up, he and mum started to argue as they always do. It wasn't as bad as it has been because dad had a hangover so the argument didn’t last long, but for my mum, hangover or not she will never pass up a chance to argue with him for no reason. They didn't talk for the rest of the weekend, so mum stayed in bed. She rarely bothers to get out of bed if she's not seeing dad or going out to buy drinks.

I clamp my eyes shut. Stop thinking about it, stop thinking about it.

My alarm goes off and I open my eyes again. I get out of bed, get dressed and get Claire out of bed.

"Good morning."

"Yeah." Her voice is always gravelly in the morning.

"What would you like for lunch today?"

"Can I have a honey sandwich and a green apple."

"Of course, I'm going to go and make breakfast."

"Ok."

I start making Claire’s food and this morning there is enough food for me to have breakfast and lunch too. I'm not as tempted by a honey sandwich as Claire is, so I make myself a ham sandwich. 

I sit down at the table with my cereal and Claire soon comes downstairs dressed but her hair looks like a blonde bird’s nest.

"Were you planning on brushing your hair this morning or do you want me to do it?"

"No, it's fine, I like it like this." We make eye contact for less than three seconds and I know she's lying.

"Are you sure you don't want me to brush it?" She hesitates.

"Ok, you can, as long as you don't brush it how mummy brushes it." I get up to get a hairbrush from her room.

Mum stopped brushing Claire's hair ages ago but when Claire still let her touch it, the process was brutal. Mum would brush it so viciously to try and get all the knots out as quick as possible, but she would rip through it just to get the job done. Claire would be in tears after because it hurt so bad, but mum wouldn't let anyone else touch it. Until Claire refused to let anyone to touch it for three days. It took a lot of convincing and a lot of conditioner, but I managed to get her hair back to a wearable state. But she's always been so careful with who touches hair now.

"I would never, ever brush your hair how mummy does it." I kiss her head.

When I get back downstairs Claire has finished her breakfast and she is sat waiting for me to start brushing her hair. I do it very carefully and very slowly, so it hurts as little as possible. I finally get it brushed and it sticks out like it always does after it's been freshly brushed. By the time she gets to school it flattens out a bit and goes curly again.

By the time I finish Claire's hair and my toast it's time to go to school, we get in the car and I drop Claire to school.

"Bye Chris. I'll see you later."

"Bye." I say with a smile.

"I love you."

"I love you too." She leaves the car.

I watch her run into her school building with her pink, sparkly bag on. Her hair has gone flat but also back to it's naturally curly state. Brushing her hair in the morning is something I definalty don't look forward to, if it didn't get so tangled, she would even need to brush it. I don't drive to school myself until I see that she's gone inside.

My day drones on as usual. One lesson bleeds into the next. I can never concentrate in school, there's always too much too much to think about and I end up staring out of the window for a good portion of the lesson. The teachers notice but don't say anything or get annoyed. I assume it's because I'm quiet and well behaved in lessons so they kind of can't get annoyed with me.

I think another reason they don't say anything about me rarely paying attention is because they feel bad that no one really talks to me. I don't mind not having any friends, I think it would be nice to have friends because I don't really talk to anyone that's my age and, in theory I'd be able to vent about my parents being shit but in reality, that's not a good idea. If I tell anyone about what goes on at home the chances of them telling an adult because they're worried about me, is very high. And I really don't want anyone to find out, partly because I'm embarrassed but also if the police find out then Claire and I would get taken out of our house. Which, again, in theory is good but then we would go into care.

The fear of Claire and I getting put into care is the only reason I try to keep mum safe, so we won’t get separated. I can't have that. The idea of Claire in a care home is awful to me. Not that she wouldn't be fine because I'm sure she would but... I know that it wouldn't be the same if someone else bushed her hair in the morning and defiantly if it wasn't me who told her a bedtime story every night. Even worse, if she gets adopted and I don't. I'm not sure I'd be able to cope knowing that she would be a part of a family that doesn't include me. I know things aren't perfect the way they are but they're the best we're going to get, and I don't think seeking help from anyone else would improve anything. If she's ok, then I'm ok.

When Claire and I get home, it doesn't look like mum is here so she's either with dad or looking for him. I can't tell if she loves him or is obsessed with him. Their relationship is weird, and I don't get it at all. One minute they're all over each other and can’t be away from each other for more than 3 seconds and then 20 minutes later they'll be throwing shit and screaming at each other over something that happened 5 years ago.

"So, what do you want to do?" I ask when we get home.

"Watch TV."

"Ok, so if you watch TV I'll go upstairs and do my homework."

"No, you can do it down here." I smile.

"Ok."

I sit on the floor and put all my stuff on the coffee table. I have to move some bottles and there is a mysterious, sticky stain that I have to avoid to keep my school work intact.

At about 6 mum decides to come home and she looks like she hasn't slept properly in years, but she always kind of looks like that. What is a bit weird is that she's not wearing tonnes of make-up and some dressy outfit. Instead she's wearing her one pair of flat shoes, jeans and a hoodie. I ask her what's for dinner and she shrugs.

"We have no food; do you at least have some money?" I ask

"Uh, yeah. Here's 20 bucks." She throws the money to me without even looking at me.

"Do you want anything?"

"Uh, no. Actually, leave the dinner leftovers on the table. I'm going for a nap so don't bother me." She says as she leaves the room.

"Bye."

"Why is mummy always so tired?" Claire asks.

"I don't know." She's always tired, I can't tell if it's alcohol or depression and I can't say I care.

I don't think she's tired because of drugs though because mum always seems to have money and if she was doing drugs, I'm almost certain she'd spend her money on that. I'm not saying she's a saint for not spending all her money on her alcohol addiction, but it’s not exactly a bad thing that she has money left over for food and gas, for the car.

"What do you want for dinner?" I ask.

"Burgers."

"I don't really want burgers, is there anything else you want?"

"Ummmm, macaroni and cheese?"

"Yeah, we can do macaroni and cheese."


	4. Chapter 4

I get woken up by someone calling me, it's almost 1 am. Who the hell is this? Oh, it's mum.

"Hello."

"Hey, you know you were offering a lift like a few hours ago?" She slurs.

"What, you mean 4 days ago?"

"Yeah, same thing. I'm by, I don't know a park or something. Will you come and pick me up?" I sigh in defeat.

"Which park?"

"The one near the beach."

"Ok, I'm coming now." I say getting out of bed.

"Bye."

I have to wake up Claire. I hate doing this because I don't want her schoolwork to be affected by mum drunkenly requesting lifts home or mum and dad yelling at each other in the middle of the night. I know I could leave her here but if anything happened to her, literally anything, even if she had a bad dream and I wasn't here to comfort her, I'd feel so bad. She'd forgive me way before I would forgive myself. I go into her room and shake her lightly. Despite the amount of times we've had to leave the house in the early hours of the morning, Claire is a pretty heavy sleeper. I think the only thing that wakes her up is shouting, which makes sense.

I quietly tell her that I'm taking her to the car and carry her to the back seat.

I drive to the park and mum isn't here. It's so annoying when she doesn't know where she is because it means I'm stuck looking for her which is the last thing I want to be doing at this time in the morning. Maybe she's wondered off because she got bored. I call her again.

"Mum, where are you?"

"Oh, crazy story, I'm not at the park near the beach I'm at the one like 5 minutes from our house." She's still slurring.

"So, are you home?"

"Yeah, I'm walking into the house right now."

"Are you sure it's our house?" There has been more than one occasion where mum has walked into a strangers house.

"Yeah, I'm sure." I can hear various doors opening then she gasps. She is defiantly in someone else’s house. "You left me dinner. I love macaroni and cheese. God, you're an angel, Christopher." That is probably the kindest thing she's said to me in weeks, maybe even months.

"Yeah, you're welcome." I hang up.

Looking in the rear-view mirror to check on Claire I notice that she's still asleep. That's good, maybe she won’t lose as much sleep as she would have if she couldn't get back to sleep. I start driving along the seafront to get home and almost instantly my phone starts to ring. I pull over and pick up the phone, I don't even bother checking who's calling me because I know it's mum calling me, most likely because she's angry about something completely irrational.

"Hey, Chris." I blush, it's Andrew. "I just saw your car."

"Uh, yeah." I guess I just can’t think of anything worth saying.

"I was wondering, because we're friends and I kissed you. Also, I know you liked it, feeling me grab the back of your neck. God, you're so hot, you kno-" He sounds drunk too. It's a weekday, the only adults I've ever known to drink on a weekday is my parents.

"Yeah, could you just get to the point, please." He laughs.

"Are you embarrassed about us kissing?"

"No, it's just... what did you want?"

"Can you give me another lift to my place?"

"Sure."

I wait for not that long and he opens the passenger door to my car.

"Hey, bitch." He smiles.

"Are you drunk?" I ask quietly remembering that Claire is still asleep.

"I don't get drunk I just have fun."

"So, you are drunk."

"Yeah."

"Do you always drink this much?"

"Uh, not usually but I don't really sleep much, and I can't think of anything else to do. Sitting in my apartment by myself got really depressing really fast."

"How come you don't sleep?"

"It's not new. I've never been able to sleep very much but it just means I have loads of time to kill."

"Oh right. So, all you've been doing, since you moved here, is getting drunk?"

"No, actually. I've also been watching TV." He says in a defensive tone. "What about you? Do you ever get drunk?" He asks looking at me.

I want to look back at him and have a proper conversation but I'm driving.

"No, I have never been drunk."

"If it's because you can't get any, I could get you some."

"Oh, believe me, I could get it alcohol if I wanted to. I just... have to many responsibilities."

"Boring." I smile.

"We're here."

"Will you walk me up the stairs again, please?"

"No." 

"What? Why?" I smile knowing that the only reason he wants me to come inside is because he wants to kiss me again.

"I have to get home."

"Fine, I guess I'll have to improvise."

"What?"

He leans over, grabs my chin, and kisses me. Not as much as he did last time but it's still with tongue. After he pulls away, he just looks at me with the smuggest expression on his face whilst I'm sat here, probably looking like an embarrassed mess. I'm very glad he can't see me properly.

"I love surprising you." He grins.

I don't manage to say anything, and he just leaves. Without saying anything more. I'm so shocked that I don't drive away for a good three minutes. No one has ever been able to leave me stunned. I'm acting like that's an impressive thing to do, it's not like I have a crazy amount of excitement in my life. I guess it surprises me so much because having anyone romantically interested in me is something I almost never consider or think about, it just seems like such an unrealistic thing to happen but, here we are. I finally snap out of it and drive home.

Before I go into the house, I pick up Claire from inside the car and put her straight into bed. I go to check on mum but she's not in her room. The next place I look is the kitchen. She's fallen asleep next to her dinner. She ate the rest of the mac and cheese which doesn't surprise me. She has a habit of not eating for a few days and then she'll have this incurable hunger for about a week and then go back to not eating again. I put a blanket around her shoulders, I would try waking her up or something, but I know there's no point. She’ll ignore me until I go away, that or she’ll yell at me for waking her up and then be too stubborn to sleep anywhere but the kitchen table.


	5. Chapter 5

The more I have seen Andrew the more I think about our friendship. Well, it's not exactly a 'friendship' because we've kissed every time, we've seen each other. I mean, I can only assume that it's more than just a friendship because I'd be an idiot to ask. I haven’t told anyone about Andrew but, then again, who would I tell? Claire is too young; I don't have any friends and it's not like my parents want to know. I really wish I had someone to talk to about him though. I don't know why but sometimes I feel like I'm bursting to tell someone about Andrew but, because I can't do that, I'll just lay in bed, think about him kissing me and get really flustered.

My thoughts have become so consumed by him that every time my phone goes off, I hope it's him and always get disappointed that it's not him. I try to distract myself with schoolwork but I'm not sure how well it's working seeing as I can never concentrate for more than three minutes. That's another part of my mind that Andrew is slowly taking over, usually when I'm daydreaming in lessons I escape to my own little world and think about bugs and plants but, every now and then, I'll remember how it felt to kiss Andrew, and how much it turned me on when he pulled my hair. I've been like this all week and I was thinking that maybe, now that it's the weekend, I won’t be thinking about him as much because I'll be spending all day with Claire.

Unlike most Fridays we don't have to see dad because mum is sick. Well, she says she's sick, but she seems fine to me. She's just been in bed all day, which is no different than normal, but I'm sure she's just having some sort of depressive episode that requires more attention than she usually demands. Because we're not seeing dad today that means we haven’t seen him since Saturday morning, but I can't say that I'm too cut up about it. I don't really have any kind of relationship with my dad. He's kind of around a lot but whenever he's around the atmosphere always goes sour, so I try to stay away from him. It annoys me that I look like him, I really don't want anything to do with him and even the idea that we look similar makes me feel weird. 

Claire defiantly looks more like mum which makes sense because she's a girl but whilst dad and I look similar, Claire almost looks like a miniature version of mum. They're both quite short and have golden blonde hair. Mum's hair is only shoulder length and not nearly as tangled as Claire's. I think mum brushes hers and then puts and ungodly amount of hairspray on it so it will stay in the same place for days on end. Claire's hair is a lot longer because has her heart set on being Rapunzel when she grows up. As of right now, when her hair is not tangled it practically reaches her waist, she loves it so much.

This evening has been pretty mellow. Mum is sat quietly in bed and I'm waiting for Claire to finish brushing her teeth so I can tell her a bedtime story. She comes back from the bathroom and immediately gets into bed.

"So, who's telling the story tonight?"

"Umm, you." She sinks further into her bed.

"Ok." I take a minute to think of a story. "So, once, there was a girl she was about... 10. She had chocolate brown hair, always in French braids, and a bright yellow coat. She was walking through the woods because she wanted to visit her friend, the owl. As she was skipping through the forest to see her owl friend a tiger walked out in front of her. This tiger was walking very slowly, not even looking at the girl. He was looking dead ahead. Then, suddenly the tiger whipped his head around and made eye contact with the girl. She was so scared that she couldn't even move. The tiger asked her 'What are you doing in my forest?' in his gravelly voice. She was too scared to reply. He circled her about 4 times before he walked away. Do you know why he walked away?"

"No, why?"

"Because she was stood so still, he thought she was a mannequin."

"What like the fake people in clothes stores?"

"Yes, exactly. After the girl calmed down, she carried on walking to her friend’s house. When she got there, she had to climb a ladder up to the owl’s house. It felt like the ladder went on forever." At this point I know how to tell a good bedtime story. At first you make it super interesting and then you drone on until they fall asleep. "She went to the owls house for some tea and biscuits. They both ate so many that they thought their bellies were going to burst..." She's asleep enough.

I go into my room with the intention of going to sleep but I get a text from Andrew saying, 'Meet me at the beach in 5 minutes.' I reply with 'Where on the beach, it's quite big.' he replies almost instantly which make my heart beat twice as fast, I can't tell if it's because I'm flattered or nervous 'Where we met.' Almost without hesitation I get my coat and get into the car. All I can do is thank any god out there that mum is sick right now. If she wasn’t, she wouldn't be in any state to look after Claire. Well, she’s home and capable of using her phone and I can guarantee that if Claire needs anything, mum will call me rather than trying to deal with it herself.

I get to the beach and there he is. Stood by the stairs above the benches where we met. He's stood under a streetlamp so I can see that he's wearing the same sort of thing he usually wears. Black jeans and a denim jacket, god he looks so good. I get out of the car and he greets me with a smile.

"I wasn't sure if you were actually going to show up."

"Oh, come on, that would be no fun." He laughs.

"Well, I promised you that we would hang out when I'm sober so... here I am." I walk closer to him.

"Ok, what are we going to do then?"

"I thought maybe a nice stroll along the beach and then if it gets to cold, we can go to my house." He gestures to the beach.

"I don't think I should be going to your house." I say half-joking and half being serious.

"I don't think you should be kissing 26-year-old strangers but here we are."

"You... that. You're right." He laughs.

We start walking along the beach together.

"So, how are you liking me sober so far?"

"It's weird not hearing you slur and seeing that you do actually have a sense of balance but other than that you seem pretty much the same." He laughs again. Andrew's laugh could make flowers grow.

"That's true. What have you been doing since, what was it, Monday?"

"Yeah, it was Monday. I've been doing the usual."

"What is the usual for you?"

"School and... just hanging around my house I guess."

"Do you not have any siblings?"

"I have a younger sister. I do stuff with her a lot, actually. We live near a park, so we go there together quite a bit. What have you been doing?"

"Pretending I don't have to start work in a few days by watching TV or listening to music. Oh, and when I decided to stop drinking by myself, I've sort of taken up cooking, but I don't know how good I am at cooking." That makes me happy that he's not drinking anymore.

"What kind of music do you listen to then because you're obviously passionate about it."

"Classic rock, mostly the Beatles." 

"Oh, they must be good then. I was wondering Andrew, have you... told anyone about me?"

"I don't really have any friends, but I did tell my brother, I tell him everything."

"How come you don't you have any friends?"

"I only moved here about 2 weeks ago and I've been spending lots of time at my flat unpacking and stuff, so I don't really have any friends at the moment."

"I'm sure you'll find some friends."

"Believe me if I did have friends then they would be knowing about you. You're, like, one of the most attractive people I have ever met." I blush again but thank god that it's night-time.

"Do you not get... embarrassed saying stuff like that?" I can just make out his smile.

"No, I don’t get embarrassed that easily. Well, that's probably because I have no shame."

We're walking quite closely so our hands brush a few times. I ignore it but Andrew goes to hold my hand and I let him.

We don't say anything for a bit before Andrew sparks up the conversation again.

"Have you ever been in a relationship?"

"No."

"How come? I'm sure you've been asked."

"Again, no. What's the time anyway? I probably need to be heading home." 

"Or, we could go to my house. I mean we've barely had any time together." I smile and face Andrew.

"I can't, sorry. Maybe some other time?"

"Ok, I don't mind waiting."

"What do you mean?" He laughs slightly.

"Don't worry about it. Come on, you said you need to go back home."

He walks me back to my car and kisses me before I leave. Not quite like last time. This time he does it soft and slowly. That means I got to savour every second of it. I feel really bad about leaving so early, but I'm so not used to leaving Claire alone with mum. The thought unsettles me and there's a part of me that feels like I need to go home to make sure that she's ok.


	6. Chapter 6

I spent most of my weekend caring for mum who, as it turns out, is actually sick. Caring is probably an overstatement though. She only has a cold so all I was doing was filling up her hot water bottle and getting her painkillers. I tried to tell her that maybe if she ate an orange or something, she might feel a bit better, but she refused every offer I gave her.

Other than that Claire and I have been making yellow and blue paper chains to go with her pink room. They may not look great but her rug and her walls are pink so I think that some paper chains would add a splash of new colour to her room. Claire's room is so different to the rest of the house. There's lots of furniture in her room and it's all been well taken care of. Claire's bedroom is the only room that has everything new. The only thing slightly off about her room is the old, dark, purple carpet. Claire wanted a pink carpet as well as walls, bedding and rug but mum said that it would stain too easily so she had to settle with dark purple. The only reason she got all new stuff is because on one of granddads rare visits he saw that Claire's room was in the same state the rest of the house was in, so he took everyone out and got Claire loads of new stuff for her room. Mum asked for some money for her and he wisely said no, she got very angry and I'm almost certain that they haven't spoken since.

When we put the paper chains up, they look surprisingly good, even if we did make one too many. After school on Monday Claire said how boring and dull my room is so she has made paper chains for my room as well then stuck them up on the celling of my bedroom. She said how only one colour can be the same so hers are blue and yellow and mine are blue and pink. I just like them because they're pink and pink always makes me think of Claire.

The only reason I'm thinking about them is because, even in the darkness, I can see them. But that's probably because I don't have any curtains in my room so I can see them being lit up by the streetlamps. 

Right now, I'm texting Andrew, which I never thought would happen. We haven’t been talking about anything interesting. He starts his new job tomorrow, but he doesn't seem to mind as he finally got around to preparing for it. I wonder what his new job is. I don't bother asking because it's probably some boring office job I'd know nothing about. He suggested to meet up again maybe this weekend. I kind of wish we could meet up before then, but he said that he wasn't sure how demanding his new job will be which works out anyway because I have school and probably shouldn't be meeting up with him during the week.

We stop talking because I mention that I'm tired and Andrew immediately told me to go to sleep and that he doesn't want me to feel like I have to stay awake because we’re talking. I thought it was a little dramatic, but he was insisting that I went to sleep. I don't even know why I mentioned it, I can never fall asleep right away. It takes a good 20 minutes of staring out of my bedroom window trying to push every depressing thought out of my head before I finally manage to get to sleep.

~~~~

I do struggle a bit to get up in the morning but it's not too much of a problem. Claire comes downstairs with the front of her hair brushed and the back still knotty.

"Did you try and brush your own hair?"

"Yeah, I couldn't do it though, so I gave up." She moves her head to the side slightly and I see her hairbrush stuck in her hair and I get the biggest wave of dread roll over me. How the fuck am I going to get that out of her hair?

"Claire, would you like me to get the hairbrush out of your hair?" She looks at me and angrily pouts.

"No, it will hurt." I sigh.

"Yes, it probably will but you can't go to school with a hairbrush stuck to the side of your head." She's still looking very unhappy about the idea. "Please let me help Claire, don't you think it would be better to take it out sooner rather than later?"

"If it hurts then you're not allowed to take it out." She says deepening her frown.

"Ok, well it's going to hurt a little bit because it is stuck pretty good, but I will be as gentle as I can."

She reluctantly agrees to let me touch her hair.

We end up spending most of the morning trying to save the chunk of her hair with the hairbrush in it and finish the actual job of brushing her hair. I think she wanted to do it by herself so it wouldn't hurt as bad but it's honestly impressive how bad she got the hairbrush stuck in her hair, I genuinely can't figure out how she's done it.

Before we leave mum shouts for me from her room. I tell Claire to wait for me in the car.

"Is this important, I have to go to school." 

"Will you stay home and look after me today, I think I'm really sick." She sounds like she's got a heavy cold but nothing for me to worry about.

"I can't I've got to go to school."

"But... I'm really sick." She's surrounded by her own snotty tissues, she looks and smells like a mess.

"Look, I'm not going to stay home just because you're sick and don't feel like taking care of yourself. But if I were you, I'd get up, put all the used tissues in the bin, have a shower and consume something with vitamin c in it." She rolls over into her pillows.

"Why can't you just stay and look after me?" She asks into her pillows.

"Because I have to go to school and you're an adult. I'm sure you're capable of looking after yourself." I know full well that she can't look after herself.

"Fine then, fuck off to school and leave me here to suffer because you obviously don't care about me."

"I don't have time for this. Just get up and stop being so stroppy."

I leave the house and start driving Claire to school.

"What did mummy want?"

"She wanted me to look after her, she's sick."

"Is she going to die?"

"No, she's just got a cold. She'll be fine." Unfortunately.

"If she's going to be fine then why did you need to look after her?"

"She doesn't actually need me to look after her, she just wanted me to stay home so she wouldn't be lonely. Don't worry about it, she'll be back to normal in a few days." I smile at her and she does a cheesy grin back. She's such a sweetheart.

~English~

"So, today guys I want to try something new." My teacher starts handing out books. "I know that you guys are almost 18 and you might think this is stupid, but I was hoping that instead of reading for the first 15 minutes of the lesson you could do small diary entries. I'm not going to read them. You can take them home or leave them here; I promise I won’t read them. You don't even have to write about your day. If you want, you could just do a short story or write poems or songs. Whatever you want. But I'd like you to do at least a paragraph a day." I get handed my book and I stare at it.

I was indifferent to the idea until he mentioned that we could do a diary. I've always liked the idea of having a diary, it would give me a chance to vent about the stuff that goes on at home. Until about three years ago I didn't have any pent-up anger about my parents because when they would piss me off, I'd yell at them and say every little thing I thought about them, but I stopped doing that. The last time I did that I was stomping upstairs, but all my anger melted away and turned into regret when I heard quiet sobs coming from Claire's bedroom. She told me how much she hates it when people yell. So I never did it again, which means I never get the chance to get anything off my chest so having a diary has always been quite appealing but I never had one because if my dad found it there would basically be no point in living anymore. She did say that we could leave the books here, but I don't know if I trust her not to read them. For all I know this is just some fucked up way to spy on us.

After staring at a blank page for about four minutes, considering what I'm going to write I decide to make it look like I'm writing a story but in the format of a diary. This way I can leave it here so my dad won’t read it but then if my teacher does end up reading it I can just stick to the plan and claim it's a story. Honestly, I doubt she'll think there's any truth behind the entries because I'm also going to change everyone's names.

I've decided to start writing from the day before I met Andrew. It feels good being able to be completely unfiltered somewhere. I don't feel like I have to be anything. I don't have to be a good brother; I don't have to pretend to not be pissed off with mum and dad. Which I never really get to do. I write it like an actual diary and, to me, it feels so real. Which is weird because to everyone else it probably looks like a very poorly written story.


	7. Chapter 7

Our math teacher is going on maternity leave, so we have a substitute coming in to teach us for the rest of the year, but they don't show up for the first 10 minutes of the lesson. I keep the pictures that Claire draws for me in the back of my math book, so I look through them whilst everyone else talks amongst themselves. We would keep the pictures on the fridge at home, but they always get torn down one way or another. She mostly draws pictures of us together in a castle or rainbow with many dogs and cats and usually some mythical creature. 

"Hello class sorry I'm late. I'm covering for Mrs Hilton." I look up because his voice sounds familiar and it's Andrew.

Oh my god. How did I not realise? I knew that he was starting his job today and I knew we were getting a new math teacher. How did I not connect the dots? I'm such an idiot, I should've asked what his job was.

We make eye contact and I try to stay as calm as possible, but I can't. He looks as shocked and panicked as I feel. He looks out of the window; his eyes are still just as wide.

"Right, uh so I was told that you're meant to be doing um... uh. What are you supposed to be doing?" He asks looking through all the papers on his desk and specifically avoiding making eye contact with me.

"Trigonometry." Someone says.

He looks up at them and stares at them a little.

"Yes, you're right. Trigonometry. How far have you got through it? You know about theta and hypotenuse, right?" Andrew makes direct eye contact with this poor girl the entire time he's talking. Everyone seems a little creeped out, so no one says anything. "I'll show you a video."

He puts a trigonometry video on, and his eyes stay very wide. Although he's leaning on his hand, he still doesn't look relaxed. I am very glad that I'm good at acting like everything is ok. But then again, I can't say that I'm exactly freaking out. I don't think I've comprehended the severity of this situation.

We watch videos for the whole lesson and Andrew stares at his computer screen the entire time. I assume he's looking at the screen, so he won’t look at me which is understandable. He is freaking out but to be fair to him every time I look at him want to groan and hide my face. The bell goes and someone turns the light on as everyone else starts packing all their things away.

"Hey um, you. I need to see you right now and everyone else can go." Andrew points at me and when I look up at him, he is looking directly at me.

He stares at me looking weirdly calm and basically the opposite of how he initially reacted. Neither of us say anything until about 3 minutes after everyone left.

"So, this is awkward." I smile insincerely.

"Yeah." He says looking away.

"So, uh, what are we going to do?"

"I don't know." He runs his hands through his hair and messes it up but that somehow makes it look better.

"Maybe we should just stop seeing each other outside of school. I mean, we barely know each other and-" He looks at me.

"I don't want to do that. I don't think I would be able to see you like this and pretend like I don't like you." I sigh.

"It probably wasn't going to work out anyway because I don't really have a lot of free time." He looks at me but doesn't say anything. "Maybe it was for the best."

"Can you come over tonight?" He asks kind of ignoring what I just said.

"Well, the problem is that I don't know when I'm free or not."

"Just... try to come over at some point tonight. Whenever is fine because I don't really sleep." I hold his gaze for a while before saying anything.

I know I shouldn't go over and I should put my foot down and tell him no but I can't.

"Ok, I'll see if I'm free later. Why do you want me to come over?"

"So, we can really talk about this and find a conclusion that works." He says sadly. He's going to break up with me.

"Ok, well, I guess I'll see you later." I say walking out of the class.

"Oh, Chris."

"Yeah."

"You didn't tell any of your friends about us, did you?"

"No. You really don't need to worry about that."

"Ok, see you later."

I leave and speed walk to my next lesson because not only am I late but for some reason I have lots of adrenaline right now. When I walk in my teacher asks me why I'm so late and I don't know what to say. I guess talking to your teacher after class is normal, so I just say that. She lets me sit down and I really hope the no one notices how hard I'm blushing. Why do I get embarrassed so easily?

I end up spending most of the day staring into space, not doing much schoolwork and replaying the conversation I had with Andrew. We didn't even say much but I can't stop replaying it in my head and thinking over every detail. Why am I so hung up on this? It's nothing, it's fine. He's probably going to break up with me because who would want to take those risks for someone they barely know? I would probably be more upset, but we never really got close. It was nice having someone other than Claire to talk to.

When I get home, I sit Claire in front of the TV and check on mum to see if she's decided not to be ill. She's still in bed and is breathing quite loudly so I don't think she's gotten any better.

"How are you?"

"I took your stupid advice and it kind of worked but I don't know what vitamin c is so you're not all that helpful."

"There's some orange juice in the fridge. That's vitamin C."

"Could you go and get it for me?" She says in a weird baby-like voice.

"Fine." I'm not in the mood for anything today.

I get her the orange juice and another box of tissues because it looked like she was running out.

"Oh, thank you so much." She hesitates. "How did you turn out so good, Christopher?" I don't know what to say so I don't say anything for a while.

"I don't know, just did. I'll see you later."

That was weird. My phone starts to ring. Oh God, it's Andrew. I take a deep breath and go into my room to take the call.

"Hello?"

"Are you free right now?"

"Not really." I say hesitantly.

"Can you see me now?"

"I don't know if I should."

"I really want to see you."

"Yeah, but. I have... prior commitments."

"Prior commitments? What do you have to do?" How can I put this normally?

"My mum will probably go out at about 6 or half 6 and I need to look after my sister."

"Can you not come over between now and then?" He sounds desperate.

"Where are you?" I sigh.

"I'm at my house. Come over as soon as you can."

"I never ac-" He hangs up.

I go back into the living room to see Claire but I kind of linger in the doorway. Should I go? Mum isn't going out so she should be ok.

Honestly, we really do need to talk things through. He's probably going to break up with me so I should get it over and done with, right? He probably wants to tell me that we can't see each other anymore so that I won't be all lovey in school. I'm sure it will be like a five-minute conversation. I mean... it's not like I expect him to lose his job and maybe go to prison for me. So, I won't bother fighting for us. It's not like anything really happened anyway. I'm sure it won’t be hard separating Andrew from Mr. Sanderson. Fuck it, I'll go, but try to keep it a 5-minute conversation. Get in, get out. Easy.


	8. Chapter 8

I knock on Andrew's door and he opens it almost immediately. He looks like the definition of stressed out. He kind of stares at me for a bit and I don't really know why.

"Uh, come in." He gestures to his couch and we both sit down. 

I don't think I've ever felt so awkward in my entire life. I've perched myself of the very edge of his couch, feeling incredibly tense. This is a lot weirder that I thought it was going to be. It's because I thought it was going to feel like I'm sat in Andrew's flat on Andrew's couch, but it doesn't feel like that. It feels like I'm sat on my math's teachers couch. I think this is the first time in my entire life where I would prefer to be at home.

"So, what are we going to do?" I ask as he sits down. He doesn't look like he wants to sit down, he looks like he wants to pace around the room.

"I was thinking that we could probably stay together as long as no one finds out. So if we have a normal teacher/student relationship in school and then we could just hang out here." He sounds like he's trying to convince himself more than he's trying to convince me.

"But what if we do get caught? I mean, you hardly know me, am I really worth losing your job?" He looks at me like he's considering it. Is he crazy?! There's not even anything to consider, we should break up.

"Look, I do think it would be best if we stop seeing each other but seeing you in class today I realised that us not dating but having to be with each other in school isn't going to work."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean seeing you all the time and not being able to have a romantic relationship with you would drive me crazy." He says in a rough tone.

"You barely know me; how do you know it would drive you crazy?" I say quietly.

Instead of a normal reply Andrew kisses me unexpectedly. His hands are quickly on the back of my neck and then he slides them down to my waist, oh God, this feels good. The way he's leaning into me makes me start to lean back on the couch, but I resist and pull away from the kiss.

"Andrew, we still haven't figured out what we're going to do." I say slightly out of breath.

He ignores me and starts kissing down my neck onto my shoulder. I can't help but close my eyes and let him kiss my neck. The feeling of Andrew's lips on my body is becoming addictive so quickly. I groan slightly because I know that I can't let him do this to me all night, we do need to work out this whole school mess sooner rather than later. I grab his shoulders and gently push him away.

"I don't want to stop seeing you." He says with a hungry look in his eyes.

I should say no. I should tell him it's completely inappropriate and not worth it. I should tell him it would never work anyway.

"I don't want to stop seeing you either." It takes pretty much all my willpower but I resist the urge to let my hand wander past his shoulder, onto his chest.

"Ok, how are we going to do it?"

"I don't know." I say quietly. Every time I look Andrew in the eye, I feel like my brain gets turned off. It’s like I can't think properly when he's around.

"Ok, we can hang out here when we want to see each other. Do you know when you're free?"

"No, I have a very unpredictable schedule."

"Well, I'm never doing anything so why don't you come over whenever you can and pretend like nothing is happening between us when we're in school."

"Do you think that would work?"

"I don't know, but it's worth a try." He smiles at me and for some reason it makes me feel like everything is going to work out.

"Do you think so?" I ask, smiling too.

"Are you free right now?" Fuck, I thought I was only going to be here for 10 minutes.

I stand up without really thinking about it.

"No, not really. Sorry, I thought this was going to be like a 10-minute conversation, but I need to get home." I start walking towards his front door.

"Wait, Chris."

I turn around and before I can say anything Andrew is kissing me again. I can feel my brain turning off again, I want to stay. Andrew pulls away and looks like he's enjoying my surprised expression.

"See you tomorrow." I leave his house and get into the car as quickly as I can.

I wasn't even out of the house for that long, but I never leave Claire home alone with mum, so I don't know what to expect. Oh god, what if she's yelled at Claire or something, why didn't I just tell him I couldn't come over?

I get home and ask Claire what happened whilst I was gone. 

"Nothing, I've just been watching TV." She says, looking quite surprised.

"Have you seen mum?"

"No, is she lost again?"

"No, no she's not lost. She's in bed, she's still sick. I was just wondering if you had seen her."

"Oh, ok." I sit down on the couch next to her and finally relax. "Where did you go?"

"I was... with a friend."

"You don't have any friends though." That's a very valid point.

"There's a new boy in my math class and we sit next to each other. So, we're friends."

"You said no one ever talks to you in school though."

"Yes, well. They did today."

"What's his name?" 

"Andrew." I say quietly.

"Am I allowed to meet Andrew?" She asks innocently.

"I... don't know."

"Why?"

"Because I don't know if I like him yet." That's a lie, I know I like him I just don't know how long we're going to get away with keeping it a secret.

Claire and I watch TV until dinner, then I help her with some homework. After that she has a shower which always makes me nervous. She's old enough to shower by herself but I always get so worried that she's not using enough conditioner. Then again, conditioned or not, her hair is always a battle in the morning. By the time she's finished showing it's about time for her to go to bed, so I get her to put her pyjamas on and get into bed.

"Who's telling the bedtime story tonight?"

"I will." 

She tells me a story about a fierce dragon that sets fire to a small French village and the knight gets too scared to kill the dragon, so his peasant girlfriend saves the day and kills the dragon and puts out the fire. But when she killed the dragon loads of candy fell out. It turns out that God sent the dragon down to the village because it was meant to be a pinata for all the poor people but the making of the dragon went wrong and killed everyone. 

I can tell she's getting sleepy, so I turn her lamp off and leave. Out in the hallway I can see mum’s bedroom down the hall and sigh. I should probably check on her. I knock before I go in. She's asleep with a half empty bottle of wine in her arms. I stare at her for a bit. Why do things have to be like this? It's not fair, I don't want to have to see this pretty much every time I come into mum’s room. No, I need to stop.

I don't know why I'm even bothering to give thoughts like that the time of day. It's not like they're getting me anywhere, and it certainly doesn't make me feel better about the whole situation by looking at my mum drink her sorry life away. I snap out of it and put the wine on her bedside table, turn the light off and leave her room.

I could go to bed but... I could go to Andrew's house. I haven’t been gone for that long. Well, almost two hours. I guess that is a pretty long time. If I want to go and see him then I just should? But do I even want to see him? I know if I don’t, I'll regret it... I think. Fuck it, I'm going to go.

I spend about 3 minutes in my car debating whether I should bother getting out or not. We should've broken up. Why didn't we break up? This whole 'secret relationship' idea is not going to work out, it was stupid to even suggest that we do anything other than break up. I'm going to tell him that this is stupid right now. That's what should've happened when I went over earlier today. He's my teacher, we shouldn't be seeing each other romantically and I defiantly shouldn't have let him kiss my neck. Even if we don't get found out, if he decides he doesn't like me then it will be insanely awkward having to see him in school all the time. It's just not worth the hassle.


	9. Chapter 9

I knock slowly on Andrew's door. He opens it almost immediately.

"Oh, hey." He smiles at me. This is going to be harder than I thought.

"Hi." I smile back.

"Do you want to come in?"

"Yeah." When he smiles he makes my tummy go all weird.

I guess that's what people mean when they say, 'I've got butterflies in my stomach'. It's kind of odd. I don't think I've had that feeling before I met Andrew.

"I was just cooking dinner. Do you want some?" I haven’t eaten so that would be good.

"Uh, sure. What is it?" I shouldn't even be asking that, I can't stay for dinner because I need to break up with him.

"Burgers and pie for after." Fuck, I wish I ate before I came here.

"Ok, I'll have some." I lightly smile. I'm not going to break up with him, am I?

He sets me a place on his two-person table and puts a plate with one burger on it in front of me. It does look really good.

"Did you make these?" I ask.

"Yeah." I take a bite. 

"These are so good." I say with a mouthful of food by accident.

"Secret ingredient." 

"Whatever it is it's very good."

"It's love." he says sitting down and batting his eyelashes at me.

"That was a gross joke." I say smirking

"How dare you."

"No, but seriously, where did you learn to make these."

"Just an online recipe. But I’ve always been told that I’ve got a natural talent for cooking."

"That's lucky. I'm ok at cooking but I don't really know how to make anything that doesn't have pasta as the main ingredient."

"How come you only cook pasta?"

"Because I cook at home and I never know what to eat, so I ask my younger sister and she usually wants pasta. I don't know how to cook anything else because I've never needed to."

"Ok, I completely understand. My brother basically lived off mashed potato and sausages for like 3 years so for ages it was the only meal I knew how to make."

"Why were you cooking your brothers’ meals?" I just realised that cooking is meant to be a parent’s job.

"My mum and dad worked a lot, so they didn't really have time, or they were too tired." He says kind of sadly.

"Oh, that's too bad."

"What about you?"

"Huh?" I ask with another mouthful of burger.

"How come you have to cook for your sister?" Oh God. Fuck, I need to think of something quick.

"My mum is anaemic." What the fuck? Why was that my excuse? I could've copied him and said that mum and dad workloads but no, I had to go with fucking anaemia. Nice one, Chris.

"What's that?"

"It's when your body doesn't make enough white blood cells, so you get really tired really easily. Some people have it worse than others, but my mum gets it kind of bad." Why the fuck do I remember the symptoms of anaemia but not anything from science that’s actually important?

"Wow, that sounds really shitty." He says sympathetically.

"It's fine, really. She still works and stuff but most days she'll need to come home and have a nap or a rest to recharge I guess." As I hear the words come out of my mouth the more fake and downright untrue, they sound. I'm so surprised that Andrew believes me.

"Right, I was thinking she had it really bad and was bed bound or something." I nervously laugh. 

"No, it's not like that. I sort of don't even notice it because it's been like that my whole life so it's like I don't know any different."

"Right, how come your dad doesn't cook. I mean, I assume he's around a lot if your mum is tired a lot." He says innocently. Oh, Andrew, if only you knew.

"Uh, no. My parents are split up, but he does come and visit." 

"It's nice that you still see your dad even though you don't live with him. I know so many people that barely saw the parent they didn't live with just because their parents couldn't stand each other." It's weird to hear that because although I've painted a pretty normal picture I still see my family as, well, my family.

"Yeah, things are alright, I guess. Other than my anaemic mum I'm just like everyone else though." Andrew leans back and smiles. "What?"

"Nothing, you just clearly don't see what I see."

"What do you mean?"

"I just see you so different to how you see yourself. I think you stand out so much but it's clear that you just think you fade into the background."

"Do I not fade into the background?" I ask concerned. I fucking hope I fade into the background.

"No, not to me anyway. You're so different from everyone else. I couldn't pinpoint what makes you so different, but you just are. It's why I'm so draw to you."

"You're saying that like we've known each other for more than 2 weeks." I say light-heartedly.

"I know. But I've never met anyone like you before." He looks right into my eyes. Like he's trying to figure out who I really am. It makes me nervous, so I look at the table.

"I think I could defiantly say the same about you. But I don't really talk to many people."

We spend the rest of the night talking about nothing in particular which sounds weird because surely the conversation would be dry if we had nothing to talk about but it's not like that. We're bouncing, effortlessly, from topic to topic not needing any help trying to figure out what to say next. It's just so easy to be around Andrew. At 10 o'clock I notice the clock and I can't put off going back home anymore. I told myself at 9:30 that I can't stay later than 10.

"I'm so sorry but I'm going to have to leave now."

"What? Don't go." He says sounding disappointed

"We both have school tomorrow and I can't sleep in." I say standing up.

"You can be late, can't you? Just once." He says standing up and holding my hands.

"I'm sorry. I have to go." He looks at me and smiles slightly.

"Ok, I'll see you tomorrow then I guess."

"Yeah. I'll see you tomorrow." We stand together next to the table for a weird amount of time before Andrew leans in and kisses me. 

We kiss for a long time. His hand grabs the back of my neck in the way that makes my knees weak. I know I need to pull away, but I don't want to. But when he pushes his hips into mine, I know that if I don't leave now I never will, so I pull away.

"I really need to go."

"Or you could stay." I smile to be polite.

"Goodnight, Andrew." He takes his hands away from my waist and puts them at his sides.

"Fine, be boring." He says whilst I'm walking away.

"I'll see you tomorrow." So much for breaking up with him.

Driving home, I can't seem to get this stupid grin off my face. I don't know why hanging out with Andrew makes me so happy. Since I met him, I have noticed that I'm quite pessimistic and I guess being with people who aren't so depressing makes me feel better. But even when I have spoken to people who aren't depressing it's not the same feeling I get when I'm with Andrew. Claire obviously cheers me up too but it's not in the same way because Andrew doesn't cheer me up. It's almost like it's impossible to be sad around him.

When I get home, mum seems to have woken up and is yelling at the TV. She clearly finished that bottle of wine from earlier and has probably had another one. I ignore her and go to Claire's room. She hasn't woken up, thank God.

"Mum." I say walking down the stairs into the living room.

"What? Have you come down here to yell at me too, seems like everyone is yelling at me tonight." She slurs.

"Have you been out?"

"No."

"Then who's been yelling at you?" She doesn't say anything for about 3 minutes.

"No one, ok? I just don't want you to yell at me." She confesses.

"I wasn't going to yell at you, I came down here to tell you to keep it down, Claire’s sleeping."

"Oh, duh. So sorry." She whispers. "Do you want to stay and watch TV with me? You can even drink if you want."

"Yeah, no thanks. I need to go to bed. Just keep it down."

"Please stay, I get so lonely down here." She says almost choking up.

I stretch out my hand for her to take.

"Come on, let me take you to bed. You need some rest." I practically carry her up the stairs into her room.

"You're too good to me Christopher. I do nothing for you, and you do everything for me. You're such a good brother to Claire. I could never do that for either of you." She looks at me tearfully again but I struggle to smile or do anything back because, I know, that not only will she forget this tomorrow, but she doesn't mean it. This is all just one big, meaningless, drunken slur.

I choose not to say anything and go to my bedroom. I fucking hate it when she does this, it's so unfair that she gets to fuck me around like this, making me believe that she actually gives two shits about me. I know she's lying is because she's done this before. She'll claim to be endlessly thankful for everything I do for her and then as soon as she sobers up its straight back to 'I can't believe you have the nerve to talk to me like that after everything I do for you' as if she actually does anything for me.

~~~~

"Chris, are you ok?" Claire asks me as she gets into the car.

"I'm just a little annoyed from last night."

"What happened?"

"Mum was... keeping me up last night, her TV was really loud so I couldn't get to sleep." That's a lie, I couldn't get to sleep last night because I was wondering if she really meant what she said. That's why it pisses me off so much when she’s nice to me because I spend far too much time overthinking what she's said.

"She didn't wake me up."

"I know and that's a good thing because we don't need you to miss any school." I say in a lighter tone.

"What if I'm being sick every single second for 4 hours?" She asks smiling.

"Well, I don't think they'll let you into school if you're being sick everywhere. What if you're sick on one of your friends?"

"Ew! That would be so gross." She giggles.

"Right, get to school and have a good day."

"Ok, I'll see you later, I love you."

"I love you too, bye."

My first lesson today is science then it's maths. I'm just counting down the seconds until I get to go to maths. I think seeing Andrew will make me feel better. Just thinking about him has put a smile on my face which is kind of inconvenient because every time I smile, I have to look down at my book so I don't look like some sort of freak that smiles whilst being taught about atoms.

I end up actually doing my work in math because it didn't really sink in that Andrew has to do his job and be all formal in school which is not as exciting as I thought it would be. When he's teaching, Andrew looks at everyone and sometimes I feel like he's almost avoiding me, but I know it's just because I'm quiet and he's trying to pretend nothing is going on between us. Andrew is actually very good at his job; we've only had one lesson where he's being normal, and everyone already likes him. He's getting on well with everyone, but he defiantly pays more attention to the popular kids. Just from overhearing how the girls talk to him I'm pretty sure some of them have a crush on him. It makes me somewhat jealous but then I remember that we've kissed, and he said I stand out from everyone else which makes me a lot less jealous and a lot more smug.

At the end of the class, when everyone is leaving, Andrew calls me to stay behind again. We stare at each other until everyone leaves.

"Hi." I smile.

"Hello."

"How are you?" I sort of want to tell him about how I was feeling kind of shitty before I saw him but I know that's stupid, so I push that thought out as fast as it comes in.

"I'm doing alright. How are you?"

"Yeah, I'm good."

"So, Mr. Sanderson, why did you call me to stay behind?" I ask light heartedly.

"Is it wrong that I find it hot when you call me Mr. Sanderson?"

"A little bit." He laughs.

"I called you in here because I was wondering if you wanted to spend break with me. If you have better things to do, I totally understand."

"Yeah, I'll hang out here." He sits on the desk next to me and we start talking.


	10. Chapter 10

For the past 2 days I've spent lunch and break with Andrew in his office, it's a small room in the back of his classroom that consists of a desk and two chairs on opposite sides of the desk. We've decided to stick to talking so if anyone were to unexpectedly walk in nothing would look suspicious even though I really want to do more than just talk. The bell interrupts our conversation and my train of thought.

"Well, that's me. Guess I'll be going now." I get up and go to open the door, but Andrew gets up and stops me.

He holds the back of my neck and kisses me. He does the same thing every time we kiss but he still seems to make it just as good, if not better than the last kiss. I pull away.

"I need to go to my lesson." I say breathlessly.

"I know."

He leans in to kiss me again and I let him. I think being in school and knowing that we are absolutely not allowed to be doing this is making this so much better than kissing anywhere else. We need to make out in school more often because this is the best kiss we've ever had. For the first time Andrew pulls away from me.

"I have a free lesson now so if you want to stay here, you can." He says with his hands still glued to my waist.

"But... what will I tell my science teacher?"

"I can send an e-mail."

"It almost seems like you'll do anything to keep me here Mr. Sanderson." He looks at my lips again.

"You know I would." We start to kiss again and I feel his hand move from my neck down to my lower back and he pushes his hips into mine.

"I think we should stop."

"What? Why?" He presses closer into me again and my breath goes shallow.

"I don't want to fuck you in your office."

"Oh, so you would fuck me?" I blush.

"I don't know maybe." He pulls away from me but we're still standing close to each other.

"Isn't this interesting that Christopher is the first one to mention sex."

"Stop it." I playfully hit him. 

He smiles at me contently before changing the subject.

"Do you want to come over on Friday?"

"Um, I probably will but I don't know what time I can come over." 

"Ok, why?" 

"Uh, on a Friday night I'm meant to do family stuff, but I never know how long it's going to take."

"What kind of family stuff?" He asks right before kissing my neck.

"Um, I usually see my dad on a Friday." I say trying my best to answer the question coherently while Andrew sucks on my neck.

~~~~

"Mum, are we going to see dad tonight?"

"It's a Friday."

"We're not going out, are we?" I ask

"We were thinking of taking you and Claire to the park. That will be nice wont it?" She says consumed by her reflection.

"Oh yeah my dunk mum and my stoned dad at the park at 5 in the afternoon arguing about their sex life in front of families. Sounds so nice."

"Don't be sassy Christopher. It won't get you anywhere. I've been a bitch my whole life and look at me. I've got nothing to show for my life."

I roll my eyes instead of wasting my time with a response. 'Nothing to show for my life' what about your two children, you selfish cunt?

"Claire, come downstairs, we're going now." Mum shouts into the house.

Claire makes it down the stairs in a matter of seconds. That girl always has to get to her destination as quick as possible. She runs practically everywhere.

We were supposed to be walking to the park together, but mum spends the whole time looking in her small, circle mirror, doing the finishing touches of her makeup. For once she is not drunk but in some cases that's worse because she's nicer when she's drunk because she has less of a grasp on things.

When we get there, I take Claire away from mum and try to make it look like we're not with her. Dad shows up about 10 minutes late and out of my peripheral vision I can see mum starting an argument with him already, but I try my best to ignore them and focus on pushing Claire's swing, like there's nothing going on behind me.

"Chris?"

"Yes Claire."

"If mummy and daddy are meant to love each other then why do they fight all the time?" How do I put this without crushing her spirit and innocence?

"Because, although they love each other, they don't always agree with each other so sometimes they fall out."

"Oh. So, they care about each other but they don't agree on things?"

"Yeah, something like that."

About 30 minutes pass and mum comes over to us.

"We're going home."

"Why?"

"Because I need to dramatically leave and that won’t work if you don't leave with me." I know there's no point arguing with her.

"Fine, come on Claire we need to go."

"But why? We were having fun."

"It's nearly your bedtime and you need some rest."

"I don't want to go." She folds her arms and sits down on the floor.

"Fine, I'll see you at home." I start walking away.

"Christopher you can't just leave her here by herself." Mum, out of nowhere, decides that she knows what's best for Claire.

"I could stay here and argue with her for 10 minutes or pretend that I'm going to leave without her, and she'll come running after me."

Sure, enough I hear Claire's footsteps getting closer before I hear her telling me to wait and I just smile smugly at mum. She rolls her eyes at me and walks off.

When we get home, I try to get Claire to sleep as fast as I can because I want to get to Andrew's. He, apparently, has planned what we're going to do for the night. I want to get there earlier than I did last time so we can have more time together.

"Claire, before we do your bedtime story, I just want to let you know that I'm going out tonight so I'm going to leave the home phone here next to my phone number." I put the phone and my phone number on her bedside table so it's easy to get to. "If anything, happens and I mean anything. It doesn't just have to be about mum or dad. Even if you have a bad dream or you're hungry and want food, promise me that you'll call me."

"Yes, I'll 100 and a million per cent call you."

"Pinkie promise? “I hold out my little finger and she links hers with mine.

"I pinkie promise." 

"Ok, good. Now let’s do your bedtime story."

"Where are you going? Out with a friend again?" She asks intrigued.

"Yes, but that's beside the point of a bedtime story."

I don't leave the house until I'm sure Claire's asleep. Before I go I see what mum is doing. As per usual she's drunkenly watching TV in her bed.

"Mum I'm going out, just to let you know."

"Whatever. It's not like I'm planning on doing anything tonight. Where are you going?"

"Out, with a friend."

"Why can't you stay and look after Claire. What if she needs something? The whole love and compassion thing is what you do."

"Don't worry mum I would never burden you with the job of giving your own child love and affection. I just mean don't leave the house so if there's a fire or something she won’t be alone. I told her to call me if there's any trouble."

"Thanks Christopher. Sometimes I need a break from parenting." 

I roll my eyes and leave because I've had enough of her entitlement. Is she fucking serious? 'I need a break from parenting'. Claire isn't my kid and yet I make her meals, I take her to school every day and I'm the one that has to postpone my life, like going out, to make sure she's safe. She's more my kid than she is mum's. To be honest I'm surprised she doesn't call me dad considering I've been looking after her basically from when she was born.

Even when I get to Andrew's apartment I'm still in a pretty foul mood. She's such a bitch, who does she think she is? The only thing she does is drink and complain. I stomp up the stairs to Andrew's flat. As soon as he opens the door it's like the frustration melts away out of my fingertips and I relax. Which I kind of hate because I want to be angry right now.

"Hi."

"Hello." I step inside.

"So, do you remember when you told me that you don't really listen to music?"

"I do yes." Andrew leads me into a room I have yet to go into.

"Well, I thought I'd show you some music." The room is his bedroom and he is stood next to his record player.

"Why do you have a record player?" I ask.

"My granddad gave it to me because I started collecting vinyl’s and he never used his." The music turns on and it's slow and sort of weird.

'Here come old flat top'

'He come grooving up slowly'

Andrew sits crossed legged on his bed, so I sit opposite him and do the same.

"I've started with the Beatles, Abbey Road, to be more specific. The songs on this album are quite varied in genre, just to prepare you." I listen to a little bit more of the song before I say anything.

"This song is kind of weird, but I like it."

'Come together right now over me'

There's a bit of instrumental.

"I do quite like the background music. I think it's cool that they added an instrumental part." I add.

"They have quite a lot of instrumental parts in all of their songs because everyone in the Beatles can play more than one instrument."

The next song is slower but has more guitar than the last song.

'Something in the way she moves  
attracts me like no other lover  
something in the way she woos me'

"I like this one, it's cute." I smile

Andrew also smiles.

"Quite a lot of their songs are about love."

"Oh, so are you some sort of romantic?" I ask light heartedly.


	11. Chapter 11

5 songs have passed whilst Andrew has been explaining to me that he can be romantic but the way they show romance in the media and specifically teen movies is way too cheesy and not at all like real life. I don't know how 'they' are and at this point I'm too scared to ask.

"You seem to know an awful lot about these movies considering you claim to hate them."

"What do you mean?" He asks.

"If you hate these movies so much then how do you know so much about them?"

"I know so much about them because my girlfriends used to make me watch them on dates and stuff."

"Oh, that is such a lie." I laugh and he goes on to defend himself.

"I will admit that some of them were good, but I will never say that I've ever watched them by choice because I never have."

"Which of the films did you like then? I'm very intrigued considering you just went on a 10-minute rant about how they're awful."

"Considering you apparently live under a rock, you probably won’t know them, so I don't even see the point in explaining it to you." He says smugly.

"We could watch them together." I suggest.

Andrew hesitates for a second.

"The movies I enjoyed were easy A but that's because it has an original plot and is far more interesting than most rom-com movies. I liked whip it, the main character doesn't end up dating someone, I'm not even sure it's a rom-com. Anyway, those were the only chick flick style movies I can tolerate. Actually, I kind of liked 10 things I hate about you. It was alright but I can't say I'd watch it again."

"What about the ones you hated?"

"Ugh, she's all that. Basically, this guy got dared to date the misfit girl. Obviously, they fell in love. Hated clueless. It was stupid and the main character ended up with her stepbrother which is kind of fucked up. I didn't like footloose. You can't just tell a whole town that they can't dance, even more unrealistic that people listened. Actually, they might have banned drinking, or maybe it was bars. Either way it is the most absurd bullshit I've ever heard. Those are the only ones I can think of off the top of my head." I smile at him.

"At some point you're going to watch these movies with me so I can have my own opinion on them. Except you kind of told me the plot and or the ending to all of them."

"What?! Are you serious, I have to watch those again?"

"If it makes you feel any better, I'll let you talk through the whole movie and tell me how shit they are." Andrew tries to fight his smile.

"Thank you, I think."

'Mean Mr. Mustard sleeps in the park  
shaves in the dark trying to save paper'

"What's this song called?" I ask intrigued.

"Mean Mr. Mustard"

"I thought songs were meant to be named after the chorus."

"This song doesn't really have a chorus."

"Oh."

"But the end of this song flows into the beginning of the next song, and I think the same thing happens with the song after that."

"What?"

"Just listen to the end and I'll tell you when it's the next song."

'such a dirty old man, dirty old man'

The song rapidly changes but has the same sort of tune. It's like the song took a change for the better and it's become more energetic.

'Well, you should see Polythene Pam  
She's so good looking but she looks like a man'

"Is this a different song now?"

"Yeah." He says excitedly.

"Oh my god. That's so cool."

"I know! I love it it's like one of my favourite things about their music. Wait until the end of this one as well."

Polythene Pam flows into the next song and still uses the electric guitar in the end of the last song.

"This is so cool! Do all singers do this?"

"Not really." He says clearly trying to hide that he's thrilled that I love this music.

"Why!? It sounds so fucking cool." He laughs.

"I would say you're overreacting to this, but you don't really listen to music."

I wait for the song to end and it properly finishes and doesn't go into the next song. 

"Oh, it didn't do the thing." I say sadly and Andrew laughs.

"Why are you so disappointed? They haven’t done it for most of the songs."

"Yeah, but it was cool, I wanted it to last." I defend myself.

"Wait, it's going to do it again."

I listen out for the flow of one song into the next and it's so amazing to hear. I'm so pumped up right now. This is the most fun I've ever had with someone who isn't Claire.

"Oh." Andrew randomly adds.

"What?"

"This is the last song on this album that 'flows'."

"Oh. How many songs are left?"

"There's this song, then one more and then it's the end of the album."

Some of the lyrics in the song refer to other songs in the album. That's so fucking cool, oh my god this band is amazing. It's silent for ages before I say something.

"I thought you said there was another song."

"No, there's like 20 seconds of silence at the end of this song. The next song is one of my favourites."

After the silence loads of instruments suddenly play all at once then they die down and it's just the guitar and someone singing.

Her Majesty's a pretty nice girl  
But she doesn't have a lot to say  
Her Majesty's a pretty nice girl  
But she changes from day to day

I want to tell her that I love her a lot  
But I gotta get a bellyful of wine  
Her Majesty's a pretty nice girl  
Someday I'm going to make her mine, oh yeah  
Someday I'm going to make her mine

"I liked that last one. It was really sweet." I say with a smile on my face.

"Yeah, I like it too. Probably not for the same reasons but that doesn't matter." 

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It doesn't mean anything." Andrew gets up to change the record. "Which one do you want, yellow submarine or please please me?"

"I've never heard of them, so I'll let you pick."

"Ok, we'll listen to please please me."

He sits back down on the bed and we look at each other whilst waiting for the music to start. We're sat closer together this time. Andrew keeps looking at my lips and I do the same to him, but it doesn't feel quite right to kiss him right now.

'One, two, three four!

Well, she was just seventeen  
you know what I mean  
And the way she looked was way beyond compare'

This is when Andrew leans in to kiss me. He gets onto his knees which makes me lean back slightly, so I grab onto his collar as his hands find their way to my waist. Usually he goes for the back of my neck or my head but his hands on my waist feel so much better. Andrew leans into me further until I'm lying on the bed and he's hovering on top of me with one of his hands by my head and the other resting on my hip, his fingers are reaching up my jumper, only just touching my skin. I do nothing to stop him when he starts to unbuckle my jeans. 

Although I know how much we both want this he's going beautifully slowly, sluggishly unbuttoning my jeans and pulling the zipper down. I start to get hard and immediately get embarrassed. I've gotten hard over basically nothing, we're only kissing but the feeling of Andrew's hand on my hips is like nothing I've ever felt before. He tugs my underwear, still under my jeans, down slightly so they're showing my hip bones. He pulls away from the kiss and looks at me, almost as if he's asking permission without thinking I quietly say, 'do it'. He looks down to my hips and I do too, he starts running his fingers up and down my hip bone and it feels like his fingers are electric, sending shocks into my skin. His hand starts to travel down to my dick which is getting harder the more he teases me and just as he goes to take my underwear fully down, my phone starts ringing.


	12. Chapter 12

Andrew completely ignores that my phone is ringing and goes to touch my dick.

"Andrew, I need to answer it."

"Don't, just let it ring." He says in-between kisses.

I really want to ignore it, but I can't, the thought of Claire being home alone whilst mum and dad are non-stop yelling at each other makes me feel sick. I sit up, swing my legs off to the side of the bed and answer the call.

"Hello?"

"Chris, do you mind coming home?"

"Of course not. What happened?" I ask trying my best not to sound panicked.

"I had a bad dream." Claire says with a shaky voice.

"Turn your bedside lamp on and I'll be there as soon as I can."

"Be fast because something might get me."

"Nothing will hurt you, Claire. Just stay in bed. If you're in bed nothing can get to you."

"Come fast."

"I will." I hang up.

"Is Claire your girlfriend or something?" Andrew asks.

"No, she's my sister." 

I turn my head and he's sat right next to me. Just as disappointed as I am that we couldn't finish what we were doing.

"Oh, yeah. How old is she?"

"She's 8. She had a nightmare."

"Right, yeah you should go before she thinks that something is in the hallway or under her bed."

I stand up and start putting my underwear and jeans right again.

"Thanks for being so understanding."

"It's alright. I can't tell you how many times I've been cock blocked by my younger brother." He laughs.

"Thanks."

"But if you're not too tired you can come back." I smile at Andrew and walk to his bedroom door.

"Ok, I'll think about it." Andrew's hair looks amazing when it's been messed up, it makes him look beautiful. I linger in the doorway and stare at him wishing I could run my hands through it.

"Go before I make you stay." He says half-joking half-serious.

"Ok, I'll see you later."

I casually walk out of Andrew's apartment but then second, I close the door I dart down the stairs and get into my car as fast as I possibly can. I still feel sick, what if something terrible has happened and I'm not there. It's stupid to be worried about that because she's already told me what's wrong but I can't get it out of my head that she's in really bad trouble and I haven’t been there.

When I get home, I try to calm down a bit, so I don't run into Claire’s room a sweaty mess. I knock on the door and tell her it's me, so she doesn't get scared. Claire is laying down in her bed obviously taking my 'stay on your bed' instruction a little too seriously.

"What happened." I ask as I sit on the stool next to her bed.

"I was dreaming about having lunch at school and then the ground stared shaking and a hole in the ground swallowed me up. I was in a dark room by myself and I didn't know what to do because I saw all these weird animals in the dark and it was really scary. Then one came out of the shadows and... and." She starts tearing up, so I hold her hand.

"Come on, if you tell me I can help you. Just take a deep, big girl breath."

"The monster that came out of the shadows was mummy, she was walking normally and had black eyes." I don't really know what to say. If it was just a normal monster, I could tell her that it was all in her imagination and so on but... I don't know if I can tell her that mum would never hurt her because, God knows when I was younger mum hit me a few times. I would do everything in my power to stop her ever hitting Claire, but I can't promise her that it will never happen. I really don't know what to say.

I take a deep breath and a moment to think.

"Claire, it was just a dream. Mum wouldn't try to hurt you but... you're right in thinking that she's kind of a monster."

"If mummy isn't good doesn't that mean that she does want to hurt me." Claire says, clearly scared by her own words.

"I am promising you this right now, Claire. I will never, never let her or anyone else hurt you. And if they somehow get away with it then I will make sure they never even think about hurting you again." She still looks scared and unsure, so I try to put it in a way she'll understand. "Do you remember a few nights ago when you told me that story of the princess that was banished into the castle, but she made friends with the dragon. And the dragon helped her and protected her."

"Yeah, I remember."

"Think of it like this. You're the princess and I'm the dragon protecting you." She smiles.

"So, it's like mummy can come and visit the castle but she gets told off if she upsets me."

"Yes, it's exactly like that." I'm surprised at myself for coming up with that analogy.

"So, you won’t ever let mummy hurt me?"

"No, never."

"You're the best big brother that anyone has ever had." I chuckle.

"Yeah, I don't know about that. You had a nightmare and I wasn't here to help."

"That doesn't matter. You made it ok so it's ok. Mummy is the bad one because she is here, but she didn't make it ok, you always make everything ok."

"Are you alright to go to sleep now?"

"Yeah, I think so. You're an amazing super dooper dragon so I never have to be scared again." She grins and me and I grin back.

"Ok, goodnight Claire. Try not to have another nightmare."

"Goodnight Chris, I love you."

"I love you too."

I close the door and sigh that went a lot better than expected. After I get into bed all I can think about is how disappointed we both were that Andrew and I never got to finish what we started. Maybe it was a good thing though. Andrew and I still haven’t really gotten to know each other yet and I don't think it would've been a good thing to have sex with him this early on. Although, thinking about it now maybe he didn't want to have sex with me, maybe he was going to suck my dick or something. Ok, now I'm kind of annoyed that I've quite possibly missed my first blowjob.

I hope Andrew doesn't think that I revolve too much around Claire. It's quite obvious that I do but I don't want him to know that because he might think I'm too family orientated or something. Then again, he seemed to believe that mum is anaemic and that's why I have to take on my responsibility than I should. But why would mum’s anaemia mean that I have to be the one to console Claire when she has a bad dream? It's fine, I'll tell him... something. I mean, if I can come up with a lie so good it excuses mum’s alcoholism then I'm sure I'll be able to think of an excuse for why Claire needed me more than she needed mum.

~Saturday afternoon~

"Do you want to go to the park?" I ask Claire, who has a fist full of pasta bake.

"Yes, yes, yes!" She shouts.

"Ok, we can go when you slowly and calmly put the pasta back on your plate and wash your hands."

She half places it and half tosses the pasta onto her plate but there is still no mess.

"Time to wash your hands." I tell her standing up from my chair.

"Ok." She drags a chair over to the sink so she can reach the taps. "Let’s go, let's go, let's go!"

Claire runs out of the house and I chase her.

We get to the park and as per usual Claire wants to go on the swings. 

"Where were you last night Chris, I forgot."

"I was at my friend’s house." I've been thinking about Andrew all day. I really want to go and see him again. 

We did text a bit this morning but not for very long. He had schoolwork that he was putting off, but I told him he had to do it because he tells me that I have to go to sleep.

"Oh, yeah. Andrew. What does he look like?"

"He has dark brown hair."

"Like the tree trunks?"

"Yeah, I think it's a pretty similar colour to that."

"Wow."

"He has very nice hazel eyes. He's taller than me."

"He must be very tall then because you're about one million feet tall."

"Do you think I'd be as tall as a skyscraper?"

"No! No one is that tall. Except for a skyscraper but they don't count because they're not people." I laugh.

"Does he wear clothes like yours?"

"No, Andrew wears normal clothes like plain t-shirts and jeans. Not what I wear."

"I like what you wear, I think it's cool."

Most of what I wear are droopy jumpers that are thin and worn, usually with holes in them as well. I have like two pairs of jeans with rips but not rips for fashion. They have rips because I have no money and used to fall over a lot. Most of my clothes either have stains, rips or both. My clothes are clean, they're just not new.

"I need new clothes." I say trying not to sound too depressed.

"Never change what you wear! I love all of it. Do you like what I wear?"

"I love it. I think pink tights with a silver tutu and a blue t-shirt go amazingly together." That is Claire's outfit of choice for most days.

"Thank you. My teachers say that I have an 'interesting' choice in clothes."

We are at the park until about 5 because of how badly Claire wants to stay and how badly I don't want to go home. Claire has been making friends with so many people. I let her play so I'm just sat on a bench spectating. Not just her but the whole park. There's a group of boys playing football, I think a few of them are in my math class. I try not to look at them though. There are some girls sat on the grass making daisy chains I think, they look about 14.

When we get home, mum is dressed up and putting on her earrings in a mirror.

"Where are you going?"

"Out, I'll see you later." She walks straight past me.

"Claire, homework then bed. Yes?"

"Yes."

By the time Claire is in bed and asleep mum gets home and is somehow drunk out of her mind and crying because dad doesn't love her and neither does anyone else. So not much different from any other night really. I manage to calm her down and get her into bed. She put on the TV in her room and fell asleep watching it. Normally she shouts at the TV but I told her to be quiet but we share a wall, so I did hear her talking angrily to the TV until she passed out.

So that leaves me silently staring at the paper chains around my room feeling pretty fucking empty. I could so easily run away. Take all the money that I can find, probably about $200 and just get a train somewhere, anywhere, and never come back. I'm sure I could find a way to make money. Sleep at work or something. Change my name to Steve and just act like my brainless co-workers. I could make my life so much easier and it wouldn't even be that hard to achieve. I would never actually run away because I could never leave Claire behind and the chances of me getting a job are slim to none. It's an idea that would never work but it's nice to think about. The idea of leaving everyone and everything behind and going anywhere other than here is very appealing. In practice it would never work. Maybe if mum never had Claire I would've run away by now.


	13. Chapter 13

"Good morning everyone." My English teacher says as she practically bounds into the class.

Everyone kind of mumbles back.

"Come on, I know it's a Monday morning but have some excitement." She says just as cheerily as before.

No one says anything after an awkward moment of silence, so she swiftly moves on.

"Will someone hand out the books please."

As soon as I get given my book, I start writing in it.

~break~

I walk into Andrew's office and sit down. Not rudely though because I know he wants me here.

"Hello, Andrew. How are you?" He looks me up and down and hesitates.

"I'm alright."

"What's that look supposed to mean?" I ask as I sit down in the chair opposite his desk.

"What?"

"You looked me up and down before you answered my question like you were upset with me or something." I say getting concerned.

"Oh, it's nothing just... I'm really horny." I blush.

"What?" I ask breathlessly and Andrew clearly gets satisfaction from that.

"You left just after we got started on Saturday and well, I'm still horny. I didn't think it would be a problem but whenever I see you, I just want to do bad things to you." He says with a sparkle in his eye. I don't know what to say. "What is it?" He asks, now grinning.

"I just... don't ever expect you to say that kind of stuff to me." I manage to say.

"Yeah, I can tell. But I can also tell that you like it." I blush even harder.

We make eye contact for a really long time before Andrew gets up and gets really close to my face. He's not kissing me though; he's still just looking deeply into my eyes. I can't imagine what he's thinking.

He softy holds the back of my neck and quietly asks me if I want him to kiss me. I nod in response.

"No Christopher, use your words."

"Please, kiss me." I manage to say.

Surprisingly it's not a harsh kiss. It's very soft and slow. Like we've got all the time in the world. That doesn't last long though he deepens the kiss and separates my legs by putting his knee on the chair. Oh god, he's pushing his knee into my crotch. I manage to hold back my quiet moan, but I can't stop myself kind of rubbing against his knee. This is so embarrassing, but the worst part is that I don't want him to stop.

"What, hasn't anyone teased you before Christopher?" He asks, breaking the kiss in the process.

I don't say anything I just look back at him still just as flustered as before.

He pushes his knee further into my crotch and this time I can't hold back my moan. We stare at each other for a few more seconds before he gets up and sits back down in his own chair. I don't really know what to make of what just happened, but I know I liked it. I may have liked it a bit too much, I readjust myself so maybe he won’t see that I'm getting hard but he defiantly already knows.

"Why?" Is the only thing I can manage to say.

"Because, I wanted to get my own back for you leaving my house early on Saturday. That, and seeing you flustered is very fun for me." I hate to give him the satisfaction, but I blush again.

We don't say anything again for a while mostly because I just don't know what to say.

"Anyway, how's your day been?" He asks like nothing has just happened.

"Uh, yeah. It's been fine, I guess. What about you?" I can't stop wondering what Andrew looks like shirtless.

"I've had a good day. Sort of hectic though because I always say I'll do marking and stuff at home but I never do because." He hesitates. "Because I don't want to spend my free time on something I don't care about."

"I can't speak for everyone, but I don't care if I get test papers back and stuff. But that's because I don't really pay attention much."

"Yeah, I noticed that you daydream quite a lot in lesson. What's that about?"

"I don't know, I guess I get distracted easily." The bell goes off before Andrew can reply.

"We have math. Should I wait outside with everyone else?"

"No, just sit down and I'll let everyone in." I think that might look suspicious but then I think that if it was someone else, I wouldn't think anything of it.

People defiantly think that Andrew is just a nice teacher that had taken pity on me because I have no friends. That's what I would think if it was someone else in my situation.

When Andrew starts the lesson, I can't help my train of thought going from trigonometry to Andrew's lips. Or my gaze will go from the board to his torso, then his crotch. I really try not to do this because I know that Andrew notices when I do that kind of stuff and I don't want him to think I'm creepy or something. I really can't help it though. I'm still so turned on from the fact that he made those dirty noises come out of me just from putting his knee in my crotch. Oh, but it was so good.

Another reason I try not to lustfully stare at Andrew during lessons is because I get so nervous that people will notice. Usually I don't care what people think about me, but I really don't want my relationship with Andrew to be obvious, that would cause me so much hassle that I don't even want to think about. Mostly because the school will probably want to tell my mum that I've been dating a teacher and I have no idea how that's going to go down with my parents and I don't want to find out.


	14. Chapter 14

I really wanted to go and see Andrew last night but mum went out and didn't come home until like midnight which is fine but I didn't want to disturb him so late at night and I needed to go to bed anyway so I decided against it. It took me forever to actually fall asleep though, I was still so horny from Andrew teasing me, so I masturbated, which I know is normal and it's not like I've never done it but I've never felt so desperate for that release before. Even though it didn't match up to the pleasure I get from Andrew teasing me which is weird because I didn't even cum. God, I was such a mess. Wait, was? I still am a fucking mess. I can't stop thinking about him. He's just so hot and I want him to do dirty things to me.

My teacher snaps me out of my thoughts which is probably good because if I went on any further then I probably would've gotten hard which would've been very embarrassing.

"You guys are going to be working in pairs on this." Oh dear, not only was I not listening but we have to be in pairs, and I don't know anyone. "However, there will be no moving around, just work with the person next to you."

I look over to my right and Spencer is sat there. I have to work with Spencer. My problem with that is Spencer is the reason I know I'm gay and I have had a crush on him for the past 3 years. It doesn't really matter anymore because after those years of gay pining I finally convinced myself that he's way too out of my league and, judging by who his friends are, he doesn't seem like a very nice person. He is very attractive though.

Everyone starts talking to each other and we're the only ones in silence which makes things really awkward really quick.

"Were you listening?" He asks me. Oh god, I hope he was listening because if we both don't know what to do that will be fucking inconvenient.

"Um, no. Were you?"

"Yeah, I could kind of tell you weren't listening." He goes on to explain what we're doing and, honestly, it's a challenge to listen to all of the instructions all over again.

"How could you tell I wasn't listening?" I give up and finally look at him.

Go, he's so attractive. I can't stop myself from glancing at his body every now and then. He just wears clothes so fucking well and he has this perfect smile which makes me go all flustered. I kind of hate that he makes me flustered, but I'm not surprised.

"I'm pretty sure I can tell when you're not listening, only because you'll start looking out the window."

"Do you think everyone can tell?" He thinks for a minute.

"Probably not. I just notice because out of the corner of my eye it looks like you're looking at me, so I know when you do it."

"You notice stuff like that?"

"Yeah, not with just you, I notice with everyone." He says quickly.

For the rest of the lesson we just do our work. I think it looks like I'm focusing but I'm really not. I am just thinking about seeing Andrew at lunch and hoping that he teases me again.

The bell goes and as I'm packing up my stuff, I notice that Spencer is kind of staring at me. I don't really know what to do so I just choose to ignore it. As I put my bag on ready to leave Spencer calls my name.

"Yeah." I turn around and reply.

"What are you doing for lunch?"

Oh no. I want to blow him off to see Andrew but that's not how everyone else would see it. It would look like I'm choosing to hang out with a teacher over Spencer, which is what I am doing but no one knows that I'm secretly fucking the teacher. It's not like I care about my social status, but I would rather be invisible than the weird kid that wouldn't hang out with Spencer because he's friends with a teacher. I guess I kind of don’t have a choice if I I don't want to be ridiculed or become the official freak.

"Um, will anyone else be there?" I ask timidly.

"No, most of my friends are on a trip and I'm not just using you as my second choice I would just prefer to hang out with you over my other friends." It's weird that he said that he'd rather hang out with me because he doesn't know me. We've had maybe 3 brief conversations in the past year.

"Yeah, sure. I don't see why not. Where do you usually go for lunch?" He looks at me like he's in disbelief that I just agreed to hang out with him.

"I guess we could just find somewhere to sit." He says like a question.

"Ok, I don't mind." We walk out of the class together in silence. If this is awkward, I'm going to be so pissed off at myself for agreeing to this.

We just have small talk until we find somewhere to sit. This must be some sort of joke. Why would Spencer ever want to hang out with me. He's not the most popular guy in school but he's up there. It just doesn't make sense why he would want to hang out with me over his other friends. Surely, he knows them more than he knows me. Maybe I should stop thinking about it and just be glad that lunch is only 40 minutes which isn't too long to pretend like you're not insanely uncomfortable.

"So, uh, who do you usually hang around with?" Spencer asks.

"No one. I don't really have any friends, honestly."

"Oh. How come I don't see you around in lunch or break then." Fuck.

"Do you know the new math teacher?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"Well, I'm really bad at math and my last teacher kind of didn't care but he picked up on it and he helps me with the stuff I don't get which is basically everything." I've learnt that when you're lying about something you've got to say it like it's true and then people will believe you. I mean, it worked with Andrew.

"I would offer for you to hang out with me, but I think you'd be intimidated by my friends." I can't help but scoff. "What?"

"I think you're mistaking my quietness for shyness. Not to be an asshole but I wouldn't care what your friends thought of me."

"Have you not heard them talk or anything? They're quite socially dominating." 

"It sounds like you're scared of them." I smirk.

"No, I'm not. They're just... loud is all." He says clearly trying to defend himself.

"Right, I'm sure." He playfully shoves me, and I laugh. This isn't as bad as I thought it was going to be.

"You're really nice. How have you gone so long without making any friends?" I could give so many different answers to that question.

"No one really talks to me and I don't really care enough to talk to anyone. That's probably why." God, I sound like an edgy 12-year-old trying to pretend that they hate everyone.

"What about when you were a kid? Did you not go up to people and make friends with them?" I try to stay as casual as possible, but my childhood isn't what people would call 'conventional'.

I was very weary and scared of everyone because I couldn't tell the difference between screaming out of fun and screaming out of anger. In all honesty everyone really scared me, and I felt like I couldn't trust anyone. It was hard growing up around so many loud kids when all I wanted to do was make friends with bugs and basically live in my own dream world where I couldn't get hurt and I didn't have to talk to anyone.

"No. I was really invested in my own little games and no one else was really interested in playing them with me. It never bothered me because whenever people did come over to play with me, they'd always get on my nerves." I try to say as confidently as possible.

"I couldn’t imagine playing by myself as a kid. But I have a twin sister that I had to share everything with, and we would always play and do stuff together, so I guess it's hard to compare."

"Wait, you have a twin?!" I was border line obsessed with Spencer; how did I not know this.

"Yeah, she's uh, the 'black sheep' of the family, if you will. My parents sent her to a boarding school because she's um... eccentric?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, because she's nice to me so I don't like to say bad things about her but... yeah she's kind of... difficult so my parents felt it was for the best if she went somewhere else. Permanently." 

The bell goes and I get bufferflies in my stomach when I realise that I have math and get to spend the next hour fantasising about Andrew dominating me.

"What lesson do you have now?" He asks getting up.

"Maths, what about you?"

"I also have maths, let me walk you."

We walk to our lesson together still making small talk. As much as I hate to admit it I didn't have an awful time with Spencer. It wasn't as awkward as I thought it was going to be. I thought we'd have nothing to talk about and we'd end up talking about the weather or something pathetic.

I go into the class and just as I suspected, for pretty much the entire lesson all I think about Andrew and all the dirty things I can possibly think of. He asked me to stay behind at the end of the lesson.

"Where were you at lunch today?" He asks.

"Someone asked me to hang out with them and I was put on the spot, so I just agreed."

"Ok. Anyway, the main reason I asked you to stay behind is that I thought I'd let you know that I want to see you again." He says looking directly into my eyes. I can't seem to look away.

"I don't know if I can though because-"

"No, I know. You've got an unpredictable schedule. But I wanted to let you know that I want to see you tonight." He says lowering his voice to make himself sound so fucking hot.

"Ok, well, I guess I'll have to keep that in mind."

Even though he's at the front of the class and I'm still stood behind the desk I can tell that he wants to kiss me. There's no doubt in my mind that if we weren't in the classroom, he would kiss me. But, unfortunately we are in his classroom and people would see us so he won't. I glance at the clock and remember that I need to pick up Claire from school.

"I'd love to stay but I need to pick up my sister from school."

"Ok, I'll see you tonight."

"I wouldn't hold your breath." I say walking out of the classroom.


	15. Chapter 15

I knew this would happen. I just knew I'd end up outside of Andrew's apartment at some point tonight. God, I really am just like putty in his hands. Which, thinking about it is quite scary that he has all this control over me. Well, I say control, but I mean physical not emotional. It's not like I'm coming over because I love him, I'm coming over because he's nice to me and I'm really horny. I know that sounds shallow but it's hardly a surprise that I have a hard time making emotional attachments.

I knock on his door and he answers pretty quickly, like he always does. Oh, my God. Andrew didn't change out of his work clothes so he's still wearing his shirt and has loosened his tie. He's so fucking attractive.

"Well, look who finally decided to show up." He says smugly. 

"Hi." I can feel myself blushing.

"Come in."

I follow him to his couch, and he doesn't really say anything but I cannot stop looking at his torso, why is this man so attractive?

"So, I get the feeling that you don't really care what we do when we hang out so I've decided that we're watching 'she's all that' so you can see why I hate it so much."

"I don't remember which one that was."

"It doesn't really matter, just watch it."

We get through about half the movie before Andrew holds my hand and even that gets me all flustered. He looks over to me and starts smiling.

"What?" I only manage to look at him quickly because I don't want him to know how worked up I am from us just holding hands.

"Why are you getting so flustered, holding hands is the tamest thing we've done." Not only does this embarrass me more but it also turns me on more.

"Shut up. I'm not flustered." I say still unable to look at him.

"Oh, really? What if I did this?" He takes his hand away from mine and puts it under my jumper, slightly below my nipple and I start to get breathless. "See, look how well you respond to my touch Christopher." Andrew then puts both of his hands up my thin jumper so I'm facing him, and he slowly takes it off over my head grazing over my arms in the process.

"How come you weren't so flustered last time?" He asks as his hand lightly touches my neck.

"You weren't touching my body as much and I- I wasn’t as horny." I say quietly. 

He leans into my ear and whispers for me to look at him and leans back again. It takes me a minute, but I look at him and he looks right back at me with his intense eyes, him looking right at me turns me on even more. He glances down at my crotch and can see that I'm hard. When he makes eye contact with me again, he flashes me a devilish smile that says, 'I'm going to fuck you up in every way imaginable'.

He leans into me so I'm lying down on his couch but still isn't kissing me. He's just looking at me as he touches my body. Still making eye contact with me he touches my hard dick over my jeans, it makes me want to thrust into his hand, but I resist the urge. I gasp and get even more breathless because I'm trying to hold in my moans.

"Before I doubted that you were a virgin because of how hot you are but seeing you react like this to me touching your body I know for sure that no one has ever touched you like this." As he's saying this Andrew grabs my dick, still through my jeans, but my god it doesn't stop me from finally letting out a moan. He just smiles back. "You're going to be a mess when I'm done with you." He whispers as he unbuttons my jeans and pulls my underwear down so he can really touch me.

He starts wanking me off, without thinking I throw my arms over my face and arch my back slightly. This feels so good. I don't know why it feels so much better than when I do it myself, but it does. It feels so good that I can't stop myself from making so many lewd noises. Kind of out of nowhere Andrew starts fingering me but I don't care. He knows what he's doing and he's doing it well. So, fucking well.

"Andrew, I'm gonna cum." I moan as quietly as possible. He slows down a bit so I'm almost ready to cum, but I can't quite do it. He's keeping me on the edge.

"Beg me for it."

"What?"

"Beg me to let you cum." He says in a sterner tone which just turns me on more.

"Please, Andrew, I need it. I need to cum. Please let me cum." Wow, that came out a lot more desperate than I was expecting it to.

"Ok, cum for me." He goes faster again, and it doesn't take me long to cum.

I relax a bit but don't take my arm off my face. When he takes his fingers out of me it sends shivers up my spine. Then I feel Andrew's mouth around my dick, which makes my lower body twitch, but it doesn't stay for very long. When he licks my belly, I realise he's cleaning my cum off of me.

I feel him sit up in between my legs on the couch and he takes my arms away from my face. I look at him again and he's got a content look on his face, then there's me, a blushing, panting mess on his couch.

"Hey." He says in a warm tone.

"Hi." I say shakily.

I sit up and as soon as he can Andrew kisses me and holds my neck. It feels so possessive and so fucking good.

"What do you say?" He asks as he pulls away from the kiss but still holds my neck.

"Thank you." I whisper into his mouth because of how close we are. He leans into my ear to whisper back.

"Good boy." I don't know if it was the feeling of Andrew's breath on my ear or being told that I'm a good boy that made me shiver.

We just look into each other’s eyes while I catch my breath which sounds like it would be weird but it's not. I don't really know how to explain how it feels but, looking into Andrew's eyes is easy because I get lost in them.

I glance over to the TV and realise that we missed quite a bit of the movie. After putting my underwear and jeans back on we sit back on the couch together but more cuddled up than we were. I'm still shirtless which I think is a bit weird, but I think Andrew likes that I'm kind of on display, so I don't bother putting my jumper back on.

"So, other than the bit you missed how did you like the movie?" Andrew asks like he didn't just finger me.

"I don't know. I thought it was ok."

"Really?" He asks, genuinely surprised.

"I mean yeah. It wasn't good but it wasn't bad."

"You really do know nothing about movies, don't you?"

"I really don't." I say looking up from where I was resting my head on his shoulder. "Wait, what's the time?" I ask sitting up, looking for my phone. It's midnight. "I should probably go home." I sigh.

"No! Stay." Andrew says hugging me. I laugh slightly but I should defiantly go.

"That's very sweet that you want me to stay but I should go." I say holding onto his arm.

He hugs me tighter for a second then lets me go.

"Fine, you can go." I get my jumper on and before I leave, I give Andrew a quick kiss.

"Thank you for tonight. I had a lot of fun." I say as I hold his face.

"I know, I heard the moans." He says smugly.

"Ok, I'm actually leaving now." I say as I walk out of his apartment. 

As soon as I get into my car, I realise how much I don't want to go home. I want to spend the night at Andrew's and just be with him. I'm not even tired and as much as I love Claire it just really sucks that I have to be responsible for her because now that I kind of have a social life I'm realising how unfair it is that I have to look after her. It's bullshit that she's not even my child but I have all these things I have to do for her that just shouldn't be my job. It's not like I can do anything to change that though, there's no way mum would give up drinking for either of us.

When I get home, I make sure Claire is ok. She didn't call me so I assume she didn't need anything, but I check on her just in case. She's sound asleep. Having to come home early from Andrew's has just gotten me pissed off with mum so I really don't feel like checking on her. I go straight into my bedroom and look out of the window, like every other night.


	16. Chapter 16

This morning mum woke me up but not for school, she wanted a ride to a friend’s house, and she kept saying it was really important. I chose to ignore her because I'm pretty sure she was already drunk, and I really didn't want to be doing her any favours at half past seven in the morning. After I said no for the fourth time, she finally left my room and then the house, I doubt it was even important, she defiantly couldn't be bothered to walk. I got Claire up for school without much of a battle as her hair wasn't as knotty this morning and thankfully there was enough food for me to also have breakfast.

"Chris, have I told you about my new friend?" Claire asks me with a mouthful of toast.

"No, I don't think so."

"She's called Sophie and she just moved here. We're really good friends." Claire says excitedly.

"Oh, that's good. Does she fit in with your other friends?"

"I don't know. We usually only play together, just us, because all the other girls like dolls and princesses but we like dragons as well."

"It's nice that you get on with her so well."

"She's the best and she said I could go to her house for dinner whenever I wanted." My heart sinks. I don't want Claire to go to someone else's house.

It's not because I don't want her to have friends because I do, but she's so young she could let anything slip and the last thing I need is a concerned parent asking me what Claire meant by 'my mum drinks wine and shouts a lot'. Then again, I don't want to stop her from hanging out with her friends. I think I should have a conversation with her about what she can and can't say at friends’ houses.

"Yeah, we'll see. Come on. Time for school."

I have science first period which means I will see Spencer. Which is fine I just hope he doesn't ask to hang out with me again because I want to see Andrew. But I doubt he'll talk to me if we're not doing something in pairs.

Spencer said hi to me at the start of the lesson but hasn't said anything since so I get to spend the lessons with my thoughts which can be good, but it can also be bad. Sometimes I drift off to what seems like another planet in my imagination but then other times I think about mum. I have so many pressing questions that I'm too afraid to ask. Where does she get her money from? How does dad have any money? Does she know what day it is? Does she know her birthday is in two weeks? Sometimes I just can't stop myself from thinking about that kind of stuff even though it makes me feel incredibly shitty.

"Chris?" 

"Huh?" I snap myself out of my daydream and Spencer is looking at me. He smiles at me.

"I asked will you walk with me to English?" Honestly, I'm so shocked I kind of don't know what to say?

"You have English next?" He looks at me funny.

"Yeah... we're in the same class."

"Are we? I guess I never noticed you. Sorry, that was mean."

"No, it's fine. I sit behind you, so I wasn't really surprised you didn't notice me." The bell goes and everyone starts packing up their stuff. "Anyway, will you walk to English with me?"

"Yeah sure."

We walk to English making similar small talk to yesterday which is quite nice but then he asks me what I'm writing in my book.

"Uh, I'm writing a diary." I should've lied, he's defiantly going to make fun of me, or ask why I wouldn't have a diary at home.

"Oh, I didn't think anyone was actually doing a diary." 

"What are you doing yours on?"

"I'm not doing anything. She said she wouldn't look in them so I just doodle." Ok, surely it would be more interesting to write anything than just doodle for like 20 minutes.

We get to the class and start writing about the events of yesterday and last night. I write it kind of vaguely only because if my teacher is reading them, I don't want her to be reading my smut, even if she thinks it's fictional. I sort of can't help thinking about why Spencer doesn't do anything, not to be mean but that's kind of stupid of him.

After English I'm mindful that Spencer might come up to me and ask me to hang out again but he doesn't. I walk to Andrew's class and sit with him instead.

"Hi."

"Hello." He says looking up from some papers.

"What are you doing?" I ask as I sit down.

"Oh, just grading papers."

"I can leave if your busy."

"Don't kid yourself, I know you want to stay." He smiles smugly at me.

"Anyway, how are you?"

"I'm fine, I've been thinking a lot about last night." He says leaning back and sipping his coffee.

"Oh." He laughs a little.

"Is that all you have to say?"

"Well what can I say to that?" I ask, now blushing.

"You really don't know how to respond when I'm blunt, do you?"

"No."

"How about this? Last night when I was falling asleep I was thinking about how easily you submitted to me and how turned on you were by me controlling you and I started to get really turned on myself so I imagined what it would be like to fuck your face as I masturbated." He says with ease.

I literally have no idea what to say. I'm in shock.

"Are you getting hard, Christopher?" He asks, looking down at my crotch.

"No!" I blurt as I cross my legs to hide my semi-hard dick.

"Oh really?" He gets up and stands in front of my chair. "What's this then?" He puts his hands in between my thighs and without thinking I open my legs for him. He slowly leans into my ear with his hand on my crotch. "Answer me."

"I'm getting hard." I whisper.

"And why is that?" He asks looking at me again.

"I don't know." I say as he starts to lightly caress it.

"I think you do know."

"Because you- what you were saying about me was turning me on." I say just as quietly.

"Do you want me to fuck your face Christopher?" I bite my lip and nod.

Just as Andrew goes to say something else the bell goes for next lesson. He closes his eyes and sighs in disappointment. I don't say anything and try to catch my breath.

"I would ask you to stay but I have a lesson." He says opening his eyes and taking his hand off my crotch.

I so badly want to stay but I also have to go to a lesson and it's probably for the best if we don't do anything too sexual in school. But if the bell didn't go then I can't say that I wouldn't have objected. That's if Andrew wanted to keep me horny or not. He kisses my forehead and I leave.

This is the most sexually frustrated I've been, I think ever. Which is so stupid because we barely even did anything, but I can't stop imagining Andrew being half naked, or fully naked. The one thing that really stuck in my mind is when he mentioned about face fucking me, I didn't know I wanted to do that until he mentioned it. I'm not even going to bother to have a wank when I get home because I just know it won’t be the same as Andrew getting me off. I need to see him as soon as possible.

For the rest of the day I try my best to put Andrew and the things he does to me to the back of my head but when he keeps me on the edge like this, he's all I can think about. Wait, does he do this on purpose? Does he know how needy and horny I get when he does that kind of stuff. I get so turned on just thinking about it. Him knowing that I'll spend the rest of the day thinking about him and his- I need to stop before I get carried away.

Claire and I get home and she immediately goes into the living room to watch TV. I would leave her alone more because I know that at 8 years old, she's not dependant on me or anything but I'm too scared to leave her alone. I was alone at her age I always got yelled at or hit for anything and everything. I won’t let that happen to her because I probably deserved it but I know that she doesn't.

About an hour later mum stumbles into the living room. I ignore her.

"I'm home!" She yells, obviously annoyed about something.

"Yeah, I know." I say not looking her.

"Christopher, can I talk to you in private?" She says with a sweet tone that makes my stomach turn.

"I'm busy."

"I'm not fucking around." I slowly get up and walk into the hallway.

Mum closes the door behind me. This could range from her yelling at me to crying to asking for money. This really could go anywhere.

"I don't want you to talk to me like that ever again, do you understand?" I don't say anything in fear of saying the wrong thing. "You're taller than me now but I know you're still scared of me and you fucking should be. Because I'll beat you until you learn your goddamn lesson and you'll have to tell everyone that you let your mum beat you up." She says getting closer to my face.

She pushes me in the chest, and I fall back slightly, it feels like she pushed a hole in my chest.

"Ok." I say in a timid voice.

"Go to your fucking room and think about what you've done!" She yells in my face.

I don't want to go upstairs. I don't want to move; I feel like my feet have been glued to the ground I'm standing on and if I move, I'll break my legs. Despite that I still go upstairs, slowly, to my room. Quietly shutting the door, I realise I'm shaking, and I start to lose my breath. Tears well up in my eyes and I lower myself onto the ground, lying flat on my back so I can breathe easier and won’t feel as dizzy or as sick. This isn't the first time either of these things have happened, so I know what to do. Whenever this happens, I take big gulps of air, like I'm drowning and get the feeling that I can't get enough air in my lungs. I carry on taking big, gulping breaths and shaking on the ground until the tears start to roll down my face and I put my hands over my eyes and start to silently cry.

I've learnt how to cry with no noise because whenever either of my parents would hear me cry, they'd just make fun of me for being such a girl. I always hated the embarrassment of being called a girl. It made me feel like I was nothing. 

After a while my breathing slows, and I stop crying. Slowly, I take my hands away from my face and stare at my ceiling for a bit just trying to calm my breathing. Still shaky, I pull myself up and get into bed to look out of my window and remind myself that not everything is about me and how shit my life is. Why do I do this? Why do I let my parents treat me like I'm nothing? I have no backbone, I guess I deserve it because I can't stand up for myself.

I hear a light knock on the door and immediately know it's Claire because no one else would knock.

"Come in." I say sitting up.

Claire walks in and closes the door behind her then gets into bed next to me. She snuggles up to me and I put my arm around her.

"Are you ok?" I ask.

"Mummy was being scary again."

"I know."

"What if she gets angry with me for being in here?"

"I would never let mum or dad treat you like that."

"Then why do you let them yell at you?" I don't know how to respond. 

"I guess I'm used to it."

"That doesn't make it ok."

"I know. I can't make her stop yelling at me, but I can make her stop yelling at you, and that's more important." She doesn't say anything back.

Claire obviously doesn't understand how it works between me and mum, but I don't know how to explain it to her because I don't understand it either. I don't understand how mum can be so nice to me and treat me like I'm some sort of saint. But the second she feels shitty she yells at me, hits me, makes fun of me. No matter how long and hard I think about it I know I'll never understand it, so I just don't think about it.


	17. Chapter 17

Mum didn't forget what happened on Wednesday, as soon as I came home the next day, she was at home waiting for me, told me to go to my room and said I wasn't allowed out unless she told me otherwise. For dinner she ordered pizza to the house, she ate with Claire so she could specifically exclude me. She even came upstairs to tell me that they were having pizza without me, but I didn't care. Later, Claire came into my bedroom and had somehow stolen a slice of cold pizza for me. I felt like crying because I was so grateful. I was grateful, not for the pizza because I wasn't really hungry and it's not the first time I've gone without dinner, I was grateful because she cared. She cared that mum was excluding me and was trying to upset me, just knowing that someone cared really meant something.

Today it seemed like mum completely forgotten about what happened which isn't weird because she'll probably bring it up again but I know that will happen so I guess I can prepare. When we got back from school, she told me that she was going out and dad was coming to look after us at 5. It's now 8:30 and he's still not here.

"Hi, I'm here." Dad walks into the living room and it's only when he sits on the couch do, I realise that he is high.

Claire and I don't say anything. I usually ignore dad because I never know what to say to him and he doesn't need constant attention like mum does.

"Oh yeah, your mum told me that you were being rude to her and I know that we have our problems but Christopher, I fucking love that woman and if you hurt her again I'll end you." He says quietly, thinking that Claire can't hear him.

When he looks at me, I can really see how bloodshot his eyes are. The first-time dad threatened my life I was shaken up about it for weeks, after the 6th time you kind of get over it.

"I wasn't being rude to her." I try to defend myself even though I know that never works.

"I don't want to hear it. Just don't upset her again ok?"

"Yeah, I won’t."

I hate having conversations like this because I sort of know that I didn't do anything wrong but there's always a little part of me that can't shake the feeling that I did do something wrong. I'll replay the situation in my head trying to figure out how I could've prevented the argument, trying to work out what I did to deserve whatever punishment mum or dad saw fit. I never fully believe that I did nothing to deserve being treated like a piece of shit.

As time goes on, I start getting more and more uncomfortable sitting downstairs with dad, so I put Claire to bed and leave her the phone because I want to go and see Andrew. I can't really stomach being at home right now, not when he's here.

"Dad, I'm going out so don't leave because Claire will be here by herself." He looks at me and smiles.

"I wouldn't worry about me going anywhere or doing anything, I'm too stoned to move." I notice the overwhelming smell of weed and the blunt in his hand, fucking prick.

When I knock on Andrew's door, he calls for me to come in. I walk into his flat and he's not in the living room, but I see his bedroom door is slightly open. As I get closer, I can see that he's in bed.

"Hi." I stand in the doorway, mesmerised at how pretty Andrew looks in the dim lighting.

He looks at me and flashes me a grin that kind of makes me feel like everything is going to be ok.

"Why are you stood in the doorway? Get in." He says pulling the cover back. God, I love it when he bosses me around.

I take my shoes off before I get into the bed. Andrew doesn't wait for even a second to pull me in under his arm. The feeling of his arm draped over me is a lot nice than I thought it would be, I feel so... protected. It's nice. He has is watching a documentary on desert animals, I think. It's pretty interesting, but I don't think Andrew is watching it as much as I am.

"Are you alright? You've kind of seemed down for the past few days." When Andrew and I were hanging out in school I was a bit distant only because I couldn't stop thinking about mum and what she was going to say or do to me when I got home.

"I'm fine, I've just been tired."

"I don't believe you." I hesitate.

"Yeah, I have been a little upset, but I don't want to talk about it."

"Ok, is there anything I can do to make it better?"

"Just you being with me is enough."

"Look at me." I look at him and he kisses me.

When he pulls away, he turns to me and runs his fingers along the side of my face. Maybe it's just because I've been feeling so shitty recently, but everything Andrew does makes me feel so much better.

"Anyway, back to what I was saying the other day. Do you want me to fuck your face?" He asks as he pushes his knee into my crotch.

"Yes." I whisper.

"Oh, but you're a virgin, so you won’t know how to do it." He says in a low tone which turns me on every time he does it.

"I can try." I say, sounding like the desperate and pathetic as usual.

"I think we're going to have to wait." He says taking his knee away from my crotch.

"No! Please." I say grabbing onto his shirt and looking down.

"I don't know, maybe if you ask nicely."

"Please will you fuck my face?"

Andrew pushes the covers down to his knees, lays on his back and takes his semi hard dick out of his underwear. I sit up and look at it, clueless.

"I- I don't know what to do." I say in a small voice.

"Just put it in your mouth, try not to bite and I'll... help. If you don't want to do it, you don't have to." At this point I know he's not trying to embarrass me and he's actually trying to help.

I decide to get in between his legs because I guess it will be easier from that angle. Then, I curl my lips around my teeth to make sure they don't get in the way and start sucking his dick. Not long after I start Andrew grabs both sides of my head and moves my head at a much faster pace. I now see why having your dick sucked and fucking someone’s face are two different things. It doesn't take long for my mouth to start producing more saliva. His dick is kind of slamming into the back of my throat and it's making my eyes water. I hope he doesn't think I'm crying.

I look up and Andrew and he's clearly enjoying himself and I start to get turned on too just by knowing that he's using me. He starts to go a bit faster and a few involuntary tears roll down my cheeks and I start to feel the choking sensation more, but it turns me on, so I don't care. I try my best to breathe out of my nose, but I don't think it's working. That doesn't really matter though, it seems that Andrew needed to cum pretty bad because he doesn't last very long. He holds my head at the base of his cock as he cums down my throat. Andrew moans as he cums and it's so fucking hot, I want to make him moan again.

When he's finished, he lets go of my head. I take his dick out of my mouth and gasp for air. God, I didn't realise how out of breath I was until Andrew let go of me. He sits up and holds either side of my neck and kisses me quickly as I'm still panting a little.

"Let me get that." He says looking at the spit that has gathered around my chin.

He leans behind him and gets some tissues out of the top draw of his bedside table.

"Did I do good?" I ask as he wipes my face clean.

"Yeah, you did amazing. Possibly one of the best blowjobs ever."

"Really?"

"Yeah, you swallowed everything, and you obviously don't have much of a gag reflex which is a huge turn on." I can't help but feel proud of myself.

"Really? I did that good?" He smiles at me and lies down again.

"Yeah, come on." He gestures for me to get into bed again and I do, pulling up the covers from the end of the bed.

Andrew puts his arm around me again and kisses my head.

"Do you want to cum?" He asks.

"Uh, I don't mind." That's a lie. I do want to cum, Andrew moaning and using me in general has turned me on so fucking much.

"Ok." I knew this would happen.

The only way Andrew is going to let me cum is if I ask him which is so embarrassing, but it turns me on a lot so I'm not sure I really have the right to complain. We carry on watching the documentary and I wish I could pay attention, but my mind always wanders back to something to do with sex. I just want to make Andrew moan again.

"Andrew?" I ask.

"Yeah."

"When are we actually going to have sex?" I look at him and he's kind of biting his lip.

"It depends. You've never had sex before, so I don't want to hurt you. That's why I was fingering you, to get you ready I guess."

"Oh." I say disappointed. I wanted to have sex now.

"I mean if you let me finger you some more then we can have sex sooner." I know he's trying to get me to admit that I want him to get me off.

"I lied. I do want to cum." He tuts.

"Lying Christopher? How can I reward you if you've lied to me." I start to get hard.

"Please, if I don't cum now, I'll be desperate for it." I say grabbing onto his shirt and hiding my face in his chest.

"And why is you wanting me a bad thing?" He looks at me.

"I always want you." I whisper.

He puts his leg over me and straddles me. I'm still wearing my jeans, but Andrew is only in his underwear. Looking into my eyes he starts rubbing against my crotch. I still make eye contact with him but it's hard when all I want to do is arch my back so I can feel him more. Because he's rubbing me through my jeans, I can still feel the pleasure but it's like it's right in front of me but I can't quite reach it. The feeling is driving me crazy.

"Andrew, please." I say in a small voice.

"Please what?"

"Please, I want to cum so bad."

He moves back a little and looks at my crotch before he slowly starts to unbuckle my jeans. 

"Andrew, I need it." I say louder than before, throwing my head back.

"I know. Just wait." I whimper.

He finally pulls my jeans and underwear down, so my dick is out. I cover my eyes with my arms like I did last time Andrew got my dick out. He still goes agonisingly slowly so I start to unintendedly thrust into his hand and then he stops.

Andrew puts two of his fingers in my mouth and tells me to lick them, so I do. He puts the takes them out of my mouth and starts fingering me. It feels weird but... kind of good. He puts his hand on my dick again but goes slow like before and focuses on my ass which is making me really flustered.

"You like it in your ass don't you Christopher."

"Yes." I say desperately.

"Good boy." He says quietly before really getting into it.

He stops going slow and picks up the pace. I arch my back and moan. I feel Andrew slightly lean into me but I'm too embarrassed to look at him. It doesn't take me long to cum because Andrew starts pressing down on a specific place in my ass that feels kind of weird but is sending shivers up my spine. When he touches it, I almost can't help myself from cumming.

After I cum he says he's going to find something to clean his hands off with. I stay in the same position breathing heavily. When he comes back into the bedroom, he tries to take my arms away from my face but I don't let him.

"Why can't I see your face?" He asks.

"I'm embarrassed."

"Can I kiss you? I won’t look." I don't say anything.

He kisses me and moves my arms up slightly. I move my arms away from my face so I can run my hands through the back of Andrew's hair. I still don't quite manage to open my eyes though. When he pulls away, I open my eyes and look at him. Andrew just looks satisfied and happy. He looks so good, and he's not even trying. Maybe people look better right after they cum, that would make sense why Andrew is staring at me like I'm something special.

"You did really good." He says pushing the hair out of my face.

I just smile in response. I look over to his bedside table to check the time. It's 9:50. I kind of want to stay but I'm getting tired so I should probably leave.

"Stay." Andrew says before I can say anything. 

I look at him, he's gone from looking content and happy to, dare I say, desperate.

"Ok. I'll stay till 11." He kisses me quickly. I hope I don't fall asleep here.

"Good. Are you ok watching these documentaries or do you want to watch something else?" I put my jeans and underwear back on as he's talking.

"No, I like learning about animals. What channel is this?"

"It's not TV, I bought the whole planet earth series."

"What's that?"

"It's a documentary series about animals and the earth. It's big in England."


	18. Chapter 18

At school today Andrew was being very sweet. I don't really know how to explain it other than he seemed happy. He wasn't being as sexual today as he usually is, but he did mention fingering me.

Some woman approaches me in the playground as I wait for Claire at school.

"Hi, I'm Sophies mum, Karen. Are you Chris?" The lady asks.

"Uh, yeah I am."

"I assume Claire has told you about Sophie."

"Yeah she has." I smile to calm this woman’s nerves because she's acting like she's scared of me.

"Ok, good. I didn't want you to think I was just some random woman. We just moved here, and Sophie is quite shy so she's been finding it quite hard to make friends but her and Claire get on so well. I was wondering if it would be ok if Claire could come over for dinner." I can't help but feel apprehensive. I don't want Claire to say the wrong thing, but that's not fair, her social life shouldn’t suffer because mum and dad are shit.

"Yeah, that sounds like a great idea."

I see Claire run up to me in the playground.

"Claire this is Sophie's mum. Do you want to have dinner at Sophie's house tonight?"

"Yes!" She says practically bursting with excitement. 

Sophie comes out of her class pretty soon after and Claire fills her in while Karen and I discuss what time I should pick up Claire.

"Who's going to be picking up Claire, just so I know." She asks.

"It will probably be me. My mum is anaemic, so she's tired a lot but I'm sure she'll be fine with Claire going to a friend’s house. Someone will come over at about 7:30, is that ok?" I guess the 'my mum is anaemic' lie is pretty versatile.

"Yeah, that sounds great."

We walk out of the school together. It's mostly Karen talking about how she's new to town and doesn't really know anyone. I don't really mind her talking because it sounds like she's been wanting to talk about this for a while.

I get home and there's no one here. It feels weird not having Claire home. I text Andrew to ask if I can go to his house because I know that if I don't have something to distract me, I'm going to be overthinking about Claire all evening. Before I leave the house, I write a note for mum to let her know that we're both out but even if she does bother to read it, I doubt she'll care.

I knock on Andrew's front door and as soon as he opens it, he drags me in, closes the door behind me and pins me against it. He kisses me, like really kisses me. He doesn't bother putting his hands on the back of my neck, he puts them on my waist. They don't stay there for long because he puts them up the front of my sweater on my torso. I let out a little whimper as I start to get more and more turned on. Andrew pulls away and looks at me.

"I can't stop thinking about when you let me fuck your face. It turns me on so much." He whispers.

"I can do it again if you want." I sound innocent and this time it's kind of on purpose.

"Really?" He asks like he genuinely doesn't believe me.

"Yeah I would. Why are you surprised?"

"People don't usually let me fuck their face more than once."

"Why?" He smirks.

"Because I’ve never dated anyone without a gag reflex before." 

After hearing that I get on my knees and get his dick out. I love pleasing Andrew. He grabs my hair again and uses my mouth for his own pleasure. As he continues to thrust into my mouth, my eyes start to water, and some involuntary tears roll down my cheeks. He lasts longer than before so I can feel the breathlessness a bit more. His moans and grunts are turning me on so much which makes it all worth it. As he cums he holds my head down at the base of his cock again. I love when he does that, it feels so possessive.

He takes his dick out of my mouth and crouches down to just above me and holds my head back so I'm looking up at him. I don't really feel attractive as I'm gasping for air whilst my own spit runs down my chin, but I guess Andrew likes it because he looks very happy.

"Such a good boy." He says as he wipes a tear off my face. "I love to spoil you rotten with my cock." I just flash him a toothy grin.

He lets go of my hair and puts his dick away.

"Come on, let's go to bed." He says holding his hand out.

"Are we doing to have sex?" I ask while he pulls me off my knees.

"Maybe."

Unfortunately, we don't have sex and instead we watch about 45 minutes of blue planet and then I fell asleep. As I was falling asleep, I told Andrew that I have to leave by 7:15. He woke me up at 7 o'clock by giving me a hand job so I woke up cumming which was a first. Then he told me about all the noises I was making which was embarrassing because when I'm awake I try not to make too much noise, but from how Andrew was putting it, it sounded like I really wasn't holding back.

I knock on Karen's door really hoping that this is actually her house. She opens the door with a smile, and I realise almost immediately that she's faking it. I thought she would've calmed down a bit now, but she still seems almost manic.

"Hi, let me just get the girls." she leaves me at the doorway. 

"Claire's just getting her shoes on. They were playing dressing up." She says when she gets back.

"Princesses?"

"Uh, sort of. Not normal princesses."

"Yeah, that doesn't surprise me."

Claire runs out from behind Karen and oh, my god. Her hair. I think they brushed it backwards or something. Her hair is so tangled that it now possesses the ability to stand upright. I try my hardest to keep the smile on my face so Karen can't see the immense amount of dread I'm feeling right now.

"Thank you for looking after Claire tonight."

"It was honestly no trouble. You know, because your mum is tired a lot I can look after Claire whenever you want. You have my number so just let me know."

"Really?" This is an offer I will not be passing up.

"Yeah. I'd be happy to." She says with her first sincere smile of the night.

"Ok, thanks again, Karen." I say actually leaving this time.

"See you later."

I spend the rest of the night trying to detangle Claire's hair it took a bit of convincing, but she finally agreed. It wasn't too bad, I ran it under water, put an ungodly amount of conditioner in it and am now slowly brushing all the tangles out.

"Claire you didn't... talk about mum and dad when you were at Sophie's, did you?" I ask, still brushing her hair.

"No. Why?"

"You probably can't really talk about our family to other kids."

"Why?"

"Because we're not a normal family and we can't really let other people know that."

"So, I'm not allowed to talk about anything?"

"No, you can talk about some stuff. You can say that mum is tired a lot, but you can't say that she gets drunk. You can say that I look after you. Maybe don't talk about dad or how much food we have but other than that you should be fine." She doesn't say anything, so I stop brushing her hair and rest my hand on her shoulder. "If I had my way you wouldn't need to hide stuff or lie about things and I know it's unfair and it really sucks but it's too risky to tell people about what goes on at home. I'm really sorry that you have hide things, but I don't think there is any other way around it."

"Ok, you're the smartest so trust you. I won't talk about daddy or say that mummy gets drunk." I carry on brushing her hair.

"Thank you. I love you."

"I love you too."


	19. Chapter 19

After writing about being facefucked in English, Spencer stops me as I'm leaving the class.

"Wait, Christopher." He touches my arm but then immediately snatches his hand back.

"Yeah." I've noticed that right before he asks me a question, he tends to look scared.

"Um if you don't have you know, tutoring, then you can hang out with me and my friends. Only if you want though, you can say no."

"Yeah, sure. I don't have anything better to do." That's a lie, I'd much rather hang out with Andrew.

"Really?"

"Yeah." 

"Oh, ok. Let's go then." He takes me to the canteen and is clearly nervous.

We sit down with his friends and they don't really take much notice of me a first.

"Who's your new friend Spencer." Hannah asks. 

She obviously doesn't know me but she's Spencer's 'best friend'. The only reason I know who Hannah is because she's always laughing and probably flirting with Spencer and when I first liked him, I hated her. It pissed me off that they were always flirting but never officially went out. For some stupid reason it always made me feel like I had a chance with him if he was single so the fact that he was somewhere in-between being single and being in a relationship always frustrated me. Just seeing them together would piss me off, I never really stopped hating her.

"This is Christopher."

"How come I haven’t seen you around Christopher." Fuck, she sounds nice.

"I'm kind of quiet and I don't think we have any lessons together."

"Oh right, well I'm Hannah." She smiles at me.

I don't have a crush on Spencer anymore but honestly, it's fucking annoying that Hannah isn't a bitch because I want to hate her, but I can't because she's nice. Wow, that kind of sounds like something my mum would say. That's fucking terrifying.

The rest of lunch is actually pretty fun. I mostly talk to Spencer and we have a really good conversation. Hannah chips in sometimes but it just seems to be getting easier to talk to Spencer, not that it was even that hard in the first place. He seemed so much more laid back today, despite the awkwardness at the beginning of lunch, but I can't say that I'm going to hang out with Spencer unless he asks me. I always have more fun with Andrew.

As usual I don't pay attention in my lesson. I just stare out of the window and think about something else. I've sort of always been in my head and never really paid attention in school, which means I'm always trying to catch up and I don't understand most things. My teachers always say that they're concerned about my grades and that they feel I don't do enough work, but I can't get myself to pay attention. I don't really care though. I've sort of always known that I'm going to leave school with below average grades and have a disappointing life because I genuinely feel like I wasn't made for anything else.

When Claire and I get home, we play the game of life. Ever since Claire came home from Sophie's house, she's been so happy and in such a good mood. It makes me so happy to see a permanent smile on her face. Dad walks into my room without knocking and I feel my heart sink, when I look back to Claire, she looks scared. She deserves better.

"Claire, go to your room." Dad says from behind me.

She looks at me like she doesn't know what do to and I give her a reassuring smile.

"I'll be ok. Just go." I whisper to her keeping my face as soft as possible.

I get up off the floor and slowly turn to look at dad. I don't want to talk to him. I want him to leave and for Claire and I to finish our game. I don't want him here.

"Your mum has told me that you've been going out. You never go out."

"Yeah."

"Where have you been, Christopher?" He stares at me hard.

"Just at my friend’s house." I fucking hate how I sound right now. I sound so timid and scared, which I am, I just wish I could sound like I'm not scared of my dad.

"I think you're hiding something."

"Well, I'm not." 

Whenever dad feels like going through my stuff, he always accuses me of hiding something and this is the only time I've actually been hiding something. I am so fucking glad I chose to keep that dumb book at school.

He doesn’t usually dramatically go through my stuff. He just sort of rummages and doesn't put stuff back. Except for my bag, he always pours everything out and goes through every book. I don't know why he does it. I don't know what he's trying to find because he's never found anything, he can get me in trouble for. It gets really boring very fast and it always gets to a point where I feel like I can't watch him go through my stuff anymore. I've never even considered leaving the room before, there's no way I'm stupid enough to do that.

This time he rummages more aggressively, mostly throwing stuff on the ground. When he's done, he looks at me, he looks pissed off which is weird because he hasn't found anything... I don't think he has anyway. He stomps across the room and gets close to me and stares into my eyes.

"Where the fuck have you been going!?" He yells right in my face.

"I told you, I've just been with my friends." My voice is a bit shaky, I can't fucking stand it.

"You don't have any friends, where have you been going?" He says a little quieter but still yelling.

"Nothing. I promise. I'm not hiding anything." I say trying my hardest to blink the tears away.

He stares at me for a long time before he punches the wall right next to my face and stomps away.

Again, I feel frozen against this wall. It takes me a while to realise that I was holding my breath, I take a shallow gasp of air because that's all I can manage right now in my pathetic shocked state. I feel like all I can do is look at my fucked up room and replay what just happened. I fucking hate this, I hate feeling so hopeless. I can't stand feeling like the only option is to run away. When I feel the first few tears roll down my cheek, I wipe them away and start to tidy my room again.

After I finish cleaning my room I go and see Claire to let her know that I'm ok. 

"Hey." I say walking into her room.

Claire has her back to the door and is softly crying.

"What's wrong?" I say getting down to her level. She turns around but avoids making eye contact.

"I don't know why they hate you." She says through sobs.

"What?"

"Mummy and daddy always yell at you and they hate you, but I don't know why. You're so nice and I don't know why they hate you." I have nothing to say so I hug her instead and she holds onto me for dear life.

This is what reminds me to stay strong. Claire needs me to stay strong for her, she's what keeps me from crumbling into nothing.


	20. Chapter 20

For the first time in two days I actually get to spend lunch with Andrew which I'm looking forward to because I feel like I haven't properly seen him in ages.

"Hi." I can feel how obnoxious my smile is.

"Wow, you're happy to see me. It's not the first time I've excited you though."

"Stop." I try not to smile but don't hide it very well. He just smirks at me. 

"Where have you been?"

"Oh, that guy keeps asking me to hang out with him." I say sitting down.

"Which guy?"

"Just a guy who's in some of my lessons. He's called Spencer." Andrew gives me a hard stare.

"Do you have more fun with him than you do with me?" He asks knowing the answer.

"I have more fun with you."

"That's because you like it when I use you, right?" I smile a little.

"Yeah."

"I love that you're such a slut for me."

"Why do you say that like no one has been a slut for you? You've dated other people before."

"Yeah, I've dated other people but most of the people found it weird when I got possessive, so I've never really been like this with any of my ex's, and you're the most attractive person I've dated." I smile smugly.

Hearing that Andrew has had the most fun with me over any of his ex's which were probably more attractive and more experienced than me does wonders for my self-esteem. I almost can't believe that I'm the most attractive person he's dated, even the girls at school that like him are better looking than I am.

"You look really cute; it makes me want to stick my dick in you." He says in that low, gravelly voice that turns me on.

"Well, maybe you should." I say as sexy as I can, but I assume that's not that sexy.

He gets up and kisses me hard and does that thing that I love whilst he holds the back of my neck.

"I'm going to ruin if you're not careful." He says, still holding my neck.

"Maybe I want you to ruin me." I whisper.

"You dirty whore." He says rubbing my crotch. "Go on, show me how dirty you are. Hump my hand." He puts his hand flat against my crotch and I start grinding against it without questioning him.

He just looks at me as I hump his hand and get more and more desperate for him. Andrew moves his head down away from my face and starts biting my neck. Not sucking on it but biting it and it makes me grind harder and faster than I was before. Then the bell goes. I stop moving my hips and wait for Andrew to stand up.

"I didn't tell you stop." He says in harsh tone that makes me want to moan.

I start grinding against Andrew's hand again and he continues to bite my neck. Soon enough, I can feel myself getting closer and closer until I'm almost ready to cum. He moves his head out from my neck and looks me in the eyes before taking his hand away and leaving me on the edge.

"No!" I say frustrated.

"Come on, you need to go." I whimper. He holds my chin up so I have to look at him again. "Go to your lesson like a good boy." I smile weakly. I think Andrew knows I like it when he calls me a good boy.

"Ok." I say quietly.

Andrew smiles and kisses me. He fully stands up and leans against his desk.

"Bye." As I walk out of his office Andrew smacks my ass.

This is so unfair; he's made me so horny and isn't going to make me cum for god knows how long. I flash him a look and then I really leave.

When I go to pick up Claire after school Karen approaches me in the playground again.

"Hi Chris." She seems a lot more put together than she did the other day.

"Hey."

"I was thinking that because the girls had so much fun on Monday that it would be a good idea if they had a sleepover this weekend." I don't know how she manages it, but Karen makes everything she says sound like a question, even if it's a straightforward statement.

"Yeah, I think that would be a great idea. Claire had a really good time on Monday." Karen clearly gets excited.

"I'm just glad that Sophie has found a friend so quickly. She's shy and sometimes she has a hard time making friends. Hearing them play is really nice actually because I can really tell that Claire has managed to get Sophie to come out of her shell."

"That's so nice to hear, I'm glad that Claire's found an actual friend because she gets on well with everyone, but she has quite a specific way of playing." She smiles at me.

"Yep, Sophie's the same."

The girls come up to us together.

"Hey guys. How do you feel about having a sleepover on Friday?" Karen asks.

They both immediately agree and Karen gives me her phone number just in case she needs to call me for whatever reason. Claire doesn't stop talking about how excited she is and what they're going to do on Friday. I am happy for Claire but as soon as I realised that if she's away all night that means I can stay at Andrew's for the whole night. I so hope that we have sex.

I decide to wait to tell mum that Claire and I will both be out on Friday because she'll probably get wasted and forget so I'll just tell her right before I go. Claire is practically bouncing off the walls for the rest of the night because of how excited she is. I'm just so happy that that she's having a normal school life and making friends like I never did. On the other hand, it does hurt knowing that her friends won’t know why they can never come to our house or why her brother always shows up for her but her parents don't. I'm just sad for her having to explain that to other kids, it's so unfair on her but the worst part is that I can't fix it.

I finally manage to get Claire to bed by telling her that the faster she goes to sleep tonight then the faster it will be tomorrow. It did mean that I had to tell her bedtime story about ten times faster than I usually do so she could get to sleep sooner.

As I'm falling asleep, I get a call. It's Andrew and it better important because I was about to fall asleep.

"What?" I groggily say down the phone.

I don't even really sit up I just put my phone on speaker and turn the volume down.

"Are you still horny from earlier."

"I don't know." That's a lie but the question threw me off.

"Yes, you do."

"Yeah, I'm still horny." I can hear mum downstairs and I know that even if I was speaking normally, she wouldn't be able to hear me, but I can't help whispering.

"I want you to masturbate for me."

"Right now?" 

"Yeah and don't be quiet, I like to hear the filthy noises you make for me."

"Ok." I say with a spike of adrenaline running through my body.

"I want you to start by teasing yourself through your underwear." 

I run my fingertips over my underwear to turn myself on and it works. I get lost in thoughts of Andrew, shirtless, giving me hickeys and imagining what his bare skin will feel like against mine. It doesn't take long for me to get fully hard; Andrew's demanding voice turns me on so much. God, I hope he lets me cum. I start getting more whiney and start involuntarily humping the air a bit.

"Ok, now I want you to slowly start jerking yourself off." He adds.

I take my underwear off and still say nothing. Even just wrapping my hand around my dick makes me moan quietly. Slowly, just like Andrew said, I begin moving my hand up and down my cock. I try my best to keep a consistent pace so I don't go over the edge but it's so hard not to just go faster so I can cum because I want to so bad but I keep the same, slow, pace and manage to frustrate myself more and whimper down the phone a few times. I start getting really worked up and get hot underneath my covers. 

"Andrew, please can I go faster." I practically beg.

"Just wait, I want to make you a little more desperate." I whimper and arch my back in response. I don't know how he could make me more desperate for him. Even before he got me to do this I still would've been beyond compliant and desperate.

I'm such a mess, writhing in bed just to get a little more friction but continuing with my frustratingly slow pace. Although he's not saying much down the phone, I know this is making him very happy.

"Ok, you can go faster now but don't cum until I say so."

I basically start panting as I go faster and faster. My back gets more and more arched as I get closer and closer to cumming but I realise I got myself ready to cum too quick because now I'm going to have to keep myself on the edge for however long Andrew wants me to. I try not to think about that in fear that just thinking about Andrew being cruel to me will make me cum. I really don't want to disobey him though because I'm sure my punishment will have something to do with no being allowed to cum. 

"Andrew I'm- I'm gonna cum." I say breathlessly.

"Stop." Right at his command I stop and then whine because I was so fucking close.

I grab at my bedsheets to fill my fists so I can't go back and finish myself off. As I arch my back, I feel a wave of numbed pleasure go over my body, it makes my dick throb. I slowly start catching my breath through small whines.

"You can carry on, but you have to go slowly again." He orders down the phone.

I don't want to go slow. I want to go fast and just fucking cum. Hesitantly, I start slowly feeling up my length and involuntarily thrusting into my fist every now and then. My back is more arched than last time and I'm defiantly whining more.

"Stop again." 

"I don't want to." I quietly moan in response.

"I suggest you do what I say if you want to cum tonight." I immediately take my hand off my cock.

"I've stopped, I've stopped. Just, please let me cum."

"Maybe if you're really good I'll let you."

"Ok." I whisper.

"I want you to go fast again."

This time I'm more reluctant to go fast because I'm already so close and I'm so sensitive but... whatever Andrew says, goes. I just go for it. I can't help but make dirty noises down the phone. I try to be as quiet as I can, I really do but I'm getting closer and closer and more sensitive every time I touch my dick. I carry on with the fast pace but I'm dangerously close to cumming. 

"Andrew, please." I half whisper, half moan.

"Stop. Just wait a little longer, pet." I grab the bedsheets in frustration again as my dick throbs against my covers. Why is my own frustration turning me on so much?

I slightly rock my hips onto nothing, and I can't seem to stop. I can only assume that's ok because I'm not getting any real pleasure from it. Anything for some kind of friction. Another wave of dulled pleasure rolls over my body and makes me arch my back. It really is the best and worst thing about this whole situation. I don't really know what it is, the wave gives me the smallest bit of release but it's not nearly enough to satisfy me. It's giving me a taste of what I can't have and it's driving me crazy, but I want more.

"Do you have a spare pillow, Christopher?" Andrew asks.

"Yeah." I say catching my breath.

"I want you to use it to cum."

"What? How?" I whisper.

"Hump it. As if it were, I don't know... my hand." He says coolly.

Wasting no more time I pull the pillow next to me down to crotch level and straddle it, naked. I start rocking my hips against it and it sort of moves away from me, so I hold it still and start to rub myself against it again. I soon get the hang of it and the feeling of my dick rubbing against the material feels kind of good but now, it's still not enough. I start to go faster and because I'm so sensitive it's takes not very long for me to get ready to cum. My hand feels good but there's something that turns me on about humping the pillow. It feels like I'm putting on a show for Andrew even though he's not here. Just thinking about my obedience for him makes me want to cum so hard.

"Ok, you can cum for me." He finally says.

I rock my hips slightly faster against the pillow and then cum all over it. As I cum I throw my head back and bite my lip, hard because I don't want anyone to hear me. After cumming I collapse back onto my bed resting on the pillow I just came on. That was so fucking intense that I feel like I need an explosion to take me out of this weird trance I'm in.

"Such a good boy." Andrew says down the phone, then he hangs up.

I stare at my phone in the dark as I process what just happened and think about how I've never cum that hard in my life.

When I catch my breath I kind of realised what I have just done and clean up after myself. Thinking about it after I've cum, I realise that I probably came so hard because of how degrading it was to edge for Andrew and then hump my pillow because he told me to. Since I met Andrew, I'm learning lots of new things about myself.


	21. Chapter 21

The next day I notice that Andrew has been subtly staring at me during out lesson. It's kind of cute because I can see out of the corner of my eye that he'll realise that he's staring at me and then quickly look away and think I haven't noticed. Honestly, I think the only reason he looked away was because we're in school. Andrew is defiantly the type of person to shamelessly stare. I want to stare back so bad. Fuck it, why don't I?

I look up from my test and stare at Andrew. Very quickly, he catches my eye. He defiantly knows what I'm doing, he raises his eyebrow and leans back into his chair. We keep eye contact for a while. It looks like no one has noticed. I don't manage to maintain eye contact with him for very long. I thought that was going to be way more fun than it actually was. I mean, at least I now know I'm not good at making eye contact with Andrew for very long.

At the end of the lesson Andrew asks to see me for lunch. When everyone leaves, he takes me into his office, closes the door and as he turns around, he pushes me up against the wall. He holds my hands against the wall by my wrists and puts one of his legs in between mine. The feeling of Andrew towering over me is a huge turn on.

"It was so fucking hot seeing you act so innocent in class knowing how dirty you were being for me last night." I blush. That's defiantly why he was staring at me.

He starts leaving annoyingly light kisses on my neck.

"Oh, I just remembered, I can actually sleep at your house tonight." He looks at me and loosens his grip on my wrists. "I don't have to come over if you don't want me to."

"No, I do want you to come over I just didn't want to be sucking on your neck when you actually wanted to talk to me." He smiles. Fuck he's so attractive.

He's leant back and his hair has fallen so perfectly, I'm so jealous of the way his hair falls so perfectly all the time. He put his hands in his pockets, but his knee is still pushed against my crotch. I take, what I thought, was a subtle look at his waistband but he defiantly noticed.

"Are you checking me out?" He asks.

"No."

"You know it's wrong to lie, don't you Christopher." He says as he pushes his knee further into my crotch which makes my legs weak and my brain stop working.

"Ok, I was." I whimper.

He does that smug smile again.

"Good boy." He whispers as he circles his knee.

He stops moving his knee and I realise that I've let my tongue hang out of my mouth a little bit.

"Hump my leg if you want to cum."

Without hesitation I start rubbing against Andrew. I hold onto his thigh to steady myself so it's easier to cum. He leans back and watches me whilst I rub myself up and down his leg in a pathetic attempt to get more pleasure. He then puts his leg down leaving me pressed up against the wall, desperate.

"Andrew." I whine.

"What?"

"Why didn't you let me cum?" I say now more slouched against the wall.

"I thought fucking you tonight would be more fun if I know how desperate you are."

"You're the worst." I try to hide my smile and give Andrew a playful shove.

"You're cute."

"Really?" He squints at me a bit.

"Uh, yeah. Have you seen yourself?"

"Yeah, but I wouldn't say I'm 'cute'." Mostly because I look half dead, I'm so pale.

"Well, I think you're beautiful." He kisses me on the forehead, and it makes me feel like a cupcake.

"Why did you want me to... you know, last night?" I ask.

"Something to think about when I'm alone."

"What?!"

The bell goes for the last lesson.

"When are you coming over tonight?"

"I don't know. Probably quite soon after school if that's ok."

"Yeah, that's fine. Just let me know before you come over."

"Ok." I smile at him.

"You need to go right now before I fuck you against this wall."

"I wouldn't say that because it just makes me want to stay." I say batting my eyelashes slightly. He sighs.

"Just get out of here you whore."

"Ok, bye."

It's annoying but no shock that for the next hour all I can think about is Andrew fucking me. I really hope we end up having sex tonight. I've been wanting it for quite a while now and I have been acting like a complete whore for Andrew. But I don't care. I love being a slut for him.

Every time Andrew teases me, I can't get him out of my mind until I cum. He defiantly knows that I can't stop thinking about him when he denies me, he probably does it, so he knows he's the only person I'm thinking about. Honestly, it turns me on, but with all this teasing it does mean I'm horny almost all the time which is new. As we've been doing more... things I have so much more to think about. Mostly I think about Andrew fucking my face because... I don't know. It turns me on which is weird because I don't get any pleasure from it, although hearing Andrew moan and grunt the way he does is pleasure enough.

Instead of picking up Claire today I'm taking her school bag and giving her a bad full of sleepover stuff then she's going straight to Sophie's house. I'm still concerned about what she might say that could get us in trouble, but I think it will be ok. Claire seems to have a pretty good gasp on what she can and can't say so I'm just going to try and enjoy my night. I know I'm going to be non-stop thinking about her until Andrew takes my mind off her, usually by doing something sexual. After that I usually stop thinking.

"Hey, Christopher." Karen comes up to me in the playground as she usually does now.

"Hi." 

"How was your day?"

"Yeah, it was pretty standard. Nothing much really goes on with me." Besides my incredibly shitty parents and the fact that I'm fucking one of my teachers. "What about you?"

"I had a really good day actually. I went grocery shopping because I thought it would be a fun idea if the girls made pizza tonight." Karen suddenly looks concerned. "Oh, no. Claire isn't allergic to anything, is she?" I give her a friendly smile.

"No, she can and will eat anything." Karen sort of awkwardly laughs.

I would be a little offended that she always seems so stiff around me, but she seems like the kind of person that never really relaxes.

The girls come up to us and they both look extremely excited. Karen looks at me and is obviously scrambling for something to say.

"Uh, I know your mum's... situation so if anything goes wrong who should I call?"

"Honestly, my mum always says that she'd be fine to pick up Claire, but I would rather she rested so just call me. Do things usually go wrong at sleep overs?" I ask, clearly concerned. Karen does her signature semi-nervous laugh.

"No, things have never gone wrong before but if Claire gets sick in the night or if she wants to come home then I can let you know." She reassuringly smiles at me. 

Karen knows that this is Claire's first sleep over, and she's managed to calm my nerves a little bit. I guess that's what it's like to have a good mum. I smile back and say goodbye to Claire.

As soon as I sit down, I feel a wave of regret and anxiety wash over me. I should not have let this happen. Something will go wrong; something always goes wrong. This whole situation is too good to be true. I get to spend the night with Andrew and Claire gets to be a normal kid for once. Good things almost never happen to me and now suddenly this happens. Maybe I should just stay home and not bother going to Andrew's. That way I won’t miss any important calls.

I drive home and watch TV, so I don't have to really think for a while and just sort of pretend that everything is fine. My phone starts ringing and before even really checking who it is, I answer.

"Hello." I say, hopefully not sounding panicked.

"Hi." Andrew says confused.

"Oh, I thought you were... doesn't matter. Hi."

"Who did you think I was?"

"Claire has gone for a sleepover and the other girls mum told me that she would call me if anything went wrong, I sort of assumed it was her."

"Oh, why didn't you call to say you were ready to come over?"

"I... I feel weird about leaving Claire at someone else’s house."

"Claire will be fine. Nothing goes wrong at sleepovers, believe me. You're probably just worried because you've never been to one, so you have no idea what they're like." That was kind of mean but very true. I have no idea what she's going to be doing.

"Yeah, you're right." I say quietly.

"Do you still want to come over? I'm watching planet earth again." He says in a slightly playful tone.

I hesitate and look at what I'm watching on TV. Planet earth is so much better than whatever I'm watching.

"Ok, I'll be there as soon as I can." 

"When you get here just walk in. I'm in my bedroom."

"See you soon."

"Bye." I hang up.

Before I leave, I go into mum’s room to tell her that I'm not going to be home until tomorrow. I walk in and see mum and dad both fully clothed laying on top of the bedsheets, they both look like they've passed out.

"Mum, are you awake?" I push her slightly and she grunts in response. "Claire's sleeping at a friend’s house tonight and I'm also at a friend’s house for the night so we won’t be around until tomorrow."

"Ok." Her voice is so gravelly, and she sounds half asleep, I defiantly don't want to know what they've been doing all day.


	22. Chapter 22

I knock on Andrew's front door and I kind of wish I stayed home. Oh, wait I was meant to just walk in. I reach for the door handle then the door opens.

Andrew answers the door in his work clothes and I just really appreciate how his pants rest on his hips. I realize that I was staring at his crotch area for an inappropriate amount of time, I look back at him and he smiles at me.

"Well, someones horny." He says folding his arms across his chest.

"No, I just like your belt."

"Oh right. Ok then." He replies knowing that I'm lying. "Anyway, I was just about to watch some more planet earth but if you're bored of that, we don't have to watch it." He says walking into his flat and sitting on his couch.

It's weird but I always feel like a guest here, but I feel like Andrew doesn't expect me to act like a guest. Then again what would I know about how people usually treat guests in their houses. I join Andrew on the couch and sit sort of awkwardly like I usually do. This always happens when we're on his couch, I just don't know how to act in other people's houses, I think.

"No, I don't mind. I quite like the nature documentaries that we always watch. It's too bad there's only one series." Andrew looks at me kind of excited.

"There's more than one series that David Attenborough does."

"Who's that?"

"The guy that narrates it. He's done a few. There's one called 'blue planet', which is about the sea, planet earth, which is what we watch, he does one on specifically on Africa, the life of mammals. I have most of the TV shows he's narrated."

"Wow, you're kind of a nerd." I say as light-heartedly as possible. Andrew looks at me, confused.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I thought you were really cool and only interested in cool stuff, but hearing you talk about this David guy is bringing out the nerd in you."

"Look me in the eyes and tell me what's not cool about having fun whilst learning." He says in a friendly yet challenging tone.

"I'm not making fun of you, I'm just saying." 

"I just really like learning about animals and nature. You're right I am a bit of a nerd."

"Are we- are we going to have sex tonight?" I whisper.

"I was going to say yes but since you're not horny I thought, why bother?" He says in a teasing tone.

"Why do you always tease me so much?"

"Because it's fun to watch you squirm, and I enjoy that I only need to take one look at you to know you're thinking about me giving you the release you crave so much but never knowing if I'm you're going to get it. Watching you trying to figure out what I'm planning on doing to you next and knowing you'll never have a clue. It's all quite fun for me." I swallow hard.

"What kind of dirty things are you going to do to me tonight?" He looks at me.

"That's for me to know and for you to find out." He says turning on the TV.

"I assume you decided on more David Attenborough?" I ask taking my shoes off whilst trying to ignore what Andrew just said even though it was completely true and, for some reason, a turn on that he just called me out like that.

"No, we're watching whip it. It's one of the only chick flicks I actually like."

Now that I know Andrew's passion for David Attenborough, I can see why he has such a strong dislike for chick flicks, they are not educational and usually have nothing to do with animals so I assume he finds them quite boring. 

Andrew has a corner sofa in the shape of an L. I sit in the corner of the sofa with my legs crossed, Andrew sits down next to me and puts his hand on my upper thigh. And so, it begins. His hand slowly begins to travel closer and closer to my crotch.

"I thought we weren't going to do anything like this." I say knowing that this will backfire on me.

He doesn't respond and keeps his eyes glued to the TV. I don't know why but him ignoring me is turning me on. It doesn't take long for him to start teasing me through my trousers. I get so desperate so quick and it doesn't take long for my brain to turn off. I just want him to make me cum. Without really thinking I get off the couch and go to get Andrew's dick out so he can fuck my face. He does let me at first but before I can even get it out, he stops me.

"What?" I ask.

"I just thought of something more fun." He stands up with his pants undone, oh my God he's so fucking attractive. "Take your jeans off, kneel on the floor and rest your arms on the couch."

"Why?" I ask, confused.

"Because I told you to." He quickly kisses me then goes into his bedroom.

I don't really want to be half-naked in front of Andrew, but I don't know why because he's seen everything before. I do it anyway and I feel kind of stupid, but I do like the anticipation. Although, the background noise of that movie Andrew put on, and immediately got bored of, is slightly off-putting.

Andrew comes back into the room, I can't see him, but I can hear him and it's unnerving not knowing what he's going to do. He puts something cold and liquidy on my ass and fingers me slightly. He kisses my shoulder, leans into my ear and tells me to relax. Slowly he starts putting something in my ass. It feels how I imagine a dick would feel but I'm almost certain it's not Andrew. I moan slightly and rest my forehead on the couch. I know it's not that big, but I feel really... full.

Andrew stands up and presses his shin against what I can only assume is a dildo, making it go slightly deeper and it makes me moan again. He moves his shin away and then presses it harder into me. I start to get hard whilst Andrew continues to push the dildo in and out with his shin, it feels good but intense at the same time.

"Put your ass in the air." I do it without question and rest my face on the floor.

I feel so on display but I'm too horny to care at this point. He starts shoving the dildo further inside me by pushing down on the base of the dildo with his heel. I start to blush because I can't stop moaning, for some reason, it feels better at this angle, I just want him to make me cum. He starts to fuck me harder and faster with it and I can't help but wish Andrew was fucking me and not just with a dildo.

He takes his foot away, then grabs my hips and flips me over so I now have my back up against the side of the couch and I'm sitting on the dildo, I cover my face with my hands and make a weird noise, I'm so embarrassing. Andrew sits in-between my open legs and crosses his. As I take my hands away from my face, to see what he's doing, Andrew shuffles slightly closer and rests my legs on his hips. Now my legs are practically wide open in front of him and I can't move away from him easily, not that I'd want to. Andrew looks up at me through a few strands of hair and into my eyes. I'm breathing quite heavily and looking right back at him.

"Do you want me to make you cum?" He asks.

"Yes." I reply embarrassingly quickly.

He smiles at me and without breaking eye contact he starts slowly wanking me off. I can't look anymore and rest my head on the couch then throw my arms over my face. Whenever Andrew is getting me off it never takes very long, there's something about Andrew getting me off that means it takes me almost no time to cum. He presses the dildo deeper into my ass again as I'm cumming. I arch my back and make more sex noises. At this point, I'm not too bothered about making loads of noise because I know that Andrew likes it and it's not like his neighbors haven't heard us before. I can't keep my fucking mouth shut.

After I cum Andrew stops, I finally relax and put my back onto the couch again with my arms still covering my face. I hear a camera noise and when I look up Andrew has his phone in his hand.

"Did you just take a picture of me?" I am now very aware that my dick is out and is defiantly in the picture.

"Yeah, sorry, I should've asked. I can delete it if you want." I think for a second.

"You can keep it as long as no one else goes on your phone."

"No one else goes on my phone. It was just something to look at when I next get bored." He smiles and puts his phone on the coffee table next to him.

"You're such a slut." I say breaking a smile.

"Oh really, and whos the one that just got fucked by a dildo on my living room floor and moaned like a dirty slut the whole time?" Andrew says confidently.

"Me!" I say grinning.

Andrew looks at me softly for a minute.

"You know, you're probably the most serious boyfriend I've had, which is weird because we haven't been going out for that long."

"Wait, we're going out?" Andrew looks at me confused.

"Do you not want to go out with me?" 

"No, I do I just wasn't sure what we were... I guess." I think I've made this awkward.

"Chris, if someone fucks you on their living room floor with a dildo, they're probably your boyfriend."

"Yeah but for all, I know we could've been friends with benefits or something."

"That's true but I let you talk over planet earth when you get sad because literally, any animal has died." I look at him with a blank face. "Look, we are going out and that's all you need to know." I smile again.

"I like being your boyfriend." I say quietly.

"I know you do." He leans over and kisses my forehead.

As he leans back, he takes the dildo out of my ass. I've not seen it until now, it's about 4 or 5 inches. I haven't seen many penises, but I know, for sure, that Andrew is bigger than that.

"Come on, let's go." He stands up, turns the TV off and holds his hand out for me.

"Where are we going?"

"To bed." He says seductively.

We go into his bedroom and Andrew lays me down on his bed, beneath him. It doesn't take long for things to get heated and I start unbuttoning his shirt. He takes it off and leans across me to grab something from the draws next to his bed. It's a bottle of... something. He squeezes some onto his fingers.

"What is that?" I ask.

"It's lube. This might be cold." He puts it on my asshole, and it feels exactly like the stuff he put on before.

"What's it for?" I'm very confused.

"It will make it easier to have sex." He says, now fingering me.

"So, is this going to hurt?" 

"Um, I don't know. It might do but we've done quite a lot to prevent it hurting."

Andrew starts unbuttoning his pants and I now realize why he wanted to wait to have sex. He probably thought I was nervous, but I thought that gay sex and straight sex worked the same. I didn't know about all this lube and prevention stuff. Andrew softly grabs my hips and I become very aware that we're actually about to have sex.

"Andrew, wait." I say moving my head so I'm looking at him and not the ceiling.

"What?" He asks concerned.

"I- I didn't realize all this... stuff, went into sex. And I think I'm a bit scared." I whisper.

"That's ok. It's normal to be scared. We don't have to do anything you don't want to." He says in a comforting voice.

"I still want to I just didn't think there was so much to know."

"If it calms your nerves, I was going to take it slow the first couple times, so it probably won't hurt when we're actually doing it. It will feel like what we just did in the living room but maybe better. It might feel weird when you sit for a few days after, but it doesn't last." I just stare at him not really knowing what to say. "We can stop if you want."

"No, I want to do it." The way Andrew is looking at me makes me think he can tell I'm still a bit scared.

"Everything will be fine. I'm going to take care of you ok?" I nod and he kisses me.

He slowly enters me, and I accidentally break the kiss because I gasp. I was right, he is bigger than the dildo. Andrew leans down and as he slowly thrusts in and out of me, he leaves soft kisses on my neck. I put my hands on his back and hold onto him. I try not to scratch him, but I think I do a few times. It's just kind of... intense, I guess. He starts to go a bit faster which makes me arch my back slightly and accidentally press my chest into his.

Andrew lifts his head away from my neck and kisses me again. Right after he starts kissing me he goes slightly faster again. It doesn't really hurt. It mostly feels good, but it's not like anything I've felt before. It doesn't take him much longer to cum, but it doesn't stop him from kissing my neck and collar bones. After he cums, Andrew kisses me.

"You ok?" He asks, pulling away from the kiss.

"Yeah, I'm fine." I smile.

He leans into my ear.

"What do you say?" He whispers. 

I smile. Although having Andrew be concerned and gentle it's nice to know that his possessive side hasn't gone anywhere.

"Thank you."


	23. Chapter 23

After Andrew makes me cum again, we get dressed and he makes us noodles. They're instant noodles but they're pretty good. We sit on the couch for hours talking and watching different shows from this David guy. He's actually really good and I didn't think I'd be this interested in animals and nature. I have a feeling that most of what we'll be doing together is watching this kind of stuff but I don't care. I like spending time with Andrew and it's not like we could go out to dinner or go on a 'real date' and even if we could, I think I'd prefer to do this anyway. 

"Are you tired?" Andrew asks me while I'm in the middle of yawning.

"No." He smiles then looks at the TV.

"Come on, let's watch it in my bedroom instead." He says getting up and getting some of the DVDs.

I wrap the blanket that was on the back of the couch around my shoulders and wait by the side of the bed for Andrew to set up the next episode.

"You can get into bed if you want." Andrew says.

"I don't know. It would feel weird getting into your bed without you in it." 

"Yeah, I feel the same sometimes." I don't really understand what he's getting at but I don't question it.

We both get into bed and Andrew immediately pulls me closer to him. It's so much warmer in Andrew's bed, being pressed up next to him, I feel myself falling asleep. I try to stay awake but it doesn't work.

~The next morning~

I wake up and Andrew isn't in bed. I would be upset and confused but this is his house so I'm just confused. When I find my phone I check the time and my notifications just in case Karen called me. As usual, no notifications and it's 10:30 in the morning. Where is Andrew? I hear rustling and stuff in the kitchen so I assume he's there.

I realize that I didn't bring any spare clothes so I'm still in my underwear and I'm going to have to pick up Claire in yesterdays outfit. Wrapping a blanket around my shoulders I go into the kitchen to see what the noise is. It's just Andrew, wearing his underwear and his t-shirt. God, his ass fills out his underwear so right.

"Good morning." I say. Andrew turns around and smiles for about a second before he looks concerned.

"You must be cold."

"No, I'm fine."

"Let me get you something to wear."

Andrew walks past me and he comes back with one of his t-shirts. It's going to be too big for me.

"I was going to get you some trousers as well but I don't really have any except for my work pants or jeans." He says.

"It's fine, I don't need anything."

"Just put it on."

I drop the blanket and put the t-shirt on. It's a black one with a car on the front that says 'back to the future' which makes no sense. I was right, it is too big for me. Andrew is kind of muscular and built slightly bigger than I am. So not only am I physically smaller than him but I'm also quite a bit skinnier. I like it though. It makes me feel tiny which I usually kind of hate because then I feel weak and stupid but I like it this time. It makes me feel... taken care of I guess. 

He kisses my forehead before calling me beautiful and going back to what he was doing in the kitchen.

"I'm making breakfast. It's not anything spectacular but I have actually tried for once." He tells me as I sit down at the kitchen table.

Andrew has made us pancakes. He said they're not anything spectacular but I think they're good. Thinking about it, I don't know if my feedback is very useful considering I don't have a particularly varied diet.

"Do you always wake up early?" I know it's not really that early but we stayed up pretty late last night and it seems like he's been up for at least an hour. Or maybe he's just a morning person

"Yeah, I don't really sleep much."

"What do you mean?"

"I have insomnia. It basically means I have trouble getting to sleep and staying asleep. So I usually go to bed quite late and get up pretty early. That's why I made you go to sleep last night because I didn't want you to think you had to stay up because I wasn't tired."

"I wanted to stay up because I like spending time with you. Do you not get tired during the day?"

"Not really. Some days I'll have a coffee but it's mostly for the taste because it doesn't usually give me a huge energy boost."

"I didn't even know insomnia was a thing." I say clueless.

"Really?" Andrew asks surprised.

"Well, I'm not surprised that it exists but I didn't know it had a name."

We finish breakfast and move into the living room at watch whatever is on TV but we're not really watching it. Soon enough midday rolls around and I need to go and pick up Claire.

"I'm going to get my jeans on." I say getting up from the couch.

"Why?"

"Because I need to leave soon."

"Ugh, you always have to leave." Andrew moans.

I get my jeans from the bedroom and put them on.

"Ok, I'm going now." I say walking towards the front door not wanting to actually go.

"Wait, do I not get a kiss goodbye?" Andrew asks innocently.

I walk over and kiss him. Andrew, of course, deepens the kiss and puts his hands on either side of my neck. I pull away and look at him.

"I can't stay." I say breathlessly.

"I know, I just wanted to make sure you'd be thinking about me later." He smiles and it makes me want to stay.

"I'm actually leaving now."

I leave and drive to Karen's house. The same thing happens as last time where Claire doesn't want to leave so Karen and I have small talk. Small talk is usually awkward but it never really is with Karen. She always seems stiff but at this point, I'm pretty sure that being stressed out literally all the time is a part of her personality. I like her.

Claire finally comes out of the house and we say our goodbyes and leave.

"So, did you have fun?" I ask starting the car.

"Yeah, we had loads and loads of fun." Claire tells me about everything they did together.

Not just from last night though. Everything from yesterday morning up until I picked her up. They did do a lot though. Apparently, Claire learned how to do french braids, she has to explain what they are because I had no idea, they made pizza for dinner and they stayed up late and watched movies on the small TV and Sophie has in her bedroom. I'm just so glad that she had a good time.

Pulling up to our house makes my heart sink. I know that, for both of us, last night was quite possibly the most fun we've ever had but, we have to come back home, back to our reality which isn't nearly as fun and definitely more depressing. I don't want to go back to normal. I wish that I didn't have to come back home and go back to my real life.

We walk through the door and Claire goes into the living room to watch TV. I go upstairs to see if mom is here or not. She's in bed, probably pretending to be sick like she normally does.

"Where were you?" She asks, actually looking away from the TV for once.

"I told you Claire and I went to our friend's house last night."

"You and Claire have the same friends?" She asks frowning.

"No. She went to her friend's house and I went to mine. Anyway, I already told you that."

"Oh, right. Also, could you get me some orange juice from the fridge? I went shopping yesterday."

"Yeah, sure."

The fridge has gone from almost empty to half full in the space of a day. I get mum's orange juice and bring it to her, she tells me that she thinks she's sick again and tells me all about her night then asks me if I think she's sick. To avoid an argument I agree but it sounds like she has a hangover.


	24. Chapter 24

Dad came over on Sunday so Claire and I went to the park for most of the day, by the time we came home he was gone and mum was passed out in bed but still alive. It didn't look like they had an argument, because nothing was broken, but it was probably still for the best that we weren't here.

I wrote about what Andrew and I did on Friday in my English book and it feels so good to let it all out because it just makes me so happy. I know I'm not actually telling anyone but when I write in my English book it feels like it kinda feels like I'm talking to someone, it's nice to have one place where I can really let everything out. It can be a little scary because I get worried that someone might read it but mostly it's like having a weight off my shoulders. I haven't spoken to Andrew yet but he seems almost ecstatic in class today. It probably seems like he's acting normal to everyone else but I can tell that he's happier than usual, and it's most likely because we finally had sex. Most of the time Andrew is quite calm and collected but when his cute, nerdy side comes out it always makes me smile. I stay behind at the end of the lesson and we go into Andrew's office.

"Have you been like this all day?" I ask.

"I don't think so. Just when I saw you." I blush.

"Oh, come on, that's not true."

"I fucked you two days ago, of course, I'm going to be happy to see you." I smile a little.

"Well I am happy to see you too and not just because we had sex but also because I like you as a person."

"More importantly, were you horny over the weekend?"

"I think it's unfair to assume that whenever I'm horny it's because of you. I am a teenage boy." I don't know why I ever try to defend myself because I know Andrew will have a comeback that's so much better.

"Ok, were you as much of a sexual deviant before you met me?"

"No."

"So, were you horny over the weekend?"

"Yes. I also..." I trail off at the end because I get embarrassed.

"Go on."

"I masturbated to the thought of you being in charge and stuff." I say quietly, avoiding eye contact.

"Oh no, that is not allowed." Andrew says getting up from his chair.

"What?" I look at him.

"I am the only person that's allowed to get you off. That means you can't do it either." He says, now lightly holding onto my neck.

"I didn't know." I swallow hard, I've always liked the idea of getting punished by Andrew but the reality is a little surreal.

"Well, I guess that's fair enough but I still think I'm going to have to punish you." He says in a low tone.

If I'm honest I'm not really sure what he means by punishment. Does he mean a literal punishment like detention or a sex thing? I've been assuming that it's going to be a sex thing but what if he actually gives me a detention or makes me write an essay on why I shouldn't masturbate.

He starts to get me hard by rubbing my crotch and it really doesn't take long. Then, Andrew undoes my jeans and pulls my underwear down as far as he can, exposing me. I look at him helplessly and he looks right back at me with an unforgiving stare.

He wraps his hand lightly around the base of my cock and it makes me gasp slightly and, almost without hesitation, he puts his hand over my mouth to make sure I don't make any more noise. Slowly, he starts wanking me off. He does that for a while and I start squirming because I want him to go faster.

"Do you want me to go faster?" I nod my head. "Well, that's too bad because this isn't about what you want, is it? This is about how you frustrated me, so now I'm going to have to frustrate you back. So you know how I feel when you disobey me." He says not breaking eye contact. I whimper in response and hold onto the armrests of my chair.

He keeps going at the annoyingly slow pace and all I can do is squirm and whimper. I can't get any more pleasure and it's turning me on so much, I now want to cum way more than I did earlier. As I throw my head back I thrust my hips into Andrew's fist and I realize that I can slightly fuck his hand. I start doing that and Andrew take his hand away and I feel my dick throb.

I groan into Andrew's hand. He takes his hand away and leans back on his desk and looks at me. His eyes find mine and we look at each other in silence whilst I catch my breath.

"Please." I whisper.

"Please what?" He says in a low tone.

"Please, can I cum?" I say quietly.

"No. Put your jeans back on." He sits back down on his chair.

"What?"

"You don't cum unless I say so and I don't say you can cum." He says simply.

I don't know what to say. I think I'm just in shock because I really wasn't expecting him to say no. Lifting my hips up I put my jeans and underwear back on. As I zip up my flies my heart sinks a little. I have no idea when I'm next going to be able to cum which is a very disappointing thought.

I finally look at Andrew again and I try not to look too heartbroken. He smiles at me slightly.

"Such a good boy." That makes me smile again.

Don't get me wrong, I am still upset that I wasn't allowed to cum but it feels good to know that I was a good boy.

The bell goes and I hesitantly get up from my seat. I keep thinking that if I stay in here then I'll get to cum but I know that won't happen and I need to go to my next lesson anyway.

It's not out of the ordinary for me to have trouble concentrating in school but oh my god all I can think about is my dick. I'm so fucking desperate to cum. I just want it so bad. I know that Andrew is feeling smug as fuck right now. Why do I let him do this to me? I'm thinking this like I don't enjoy being teased and left on edge for someone else's amusement.

I go to pick up Claire after school like I always do and Karen comes up to talk to me like she's been doing lately but this time it's just friendly conversation and not setting up a date for Claire and Sophie to hang out. She seems a lot calmer today. Something I've found out since Karen has been making general conversation with me is that she's quite big on sharing, she told me that she's been stressed recently because of her divorce and having to move. It was a pretty one-sided conversation as I had very little to contribute on the topic of moving and divorce, that and she was talking so quick there wasn't really a chance for me to chime in.

When Claire and I get home mum isn't there and by about 8 o'clock she still hasn't shown up. I wish I didn't care, I wish it wasn't on my mind, but it is. Every time mum's not around for a whole day I can't help but think something's happened to her. What if she never comes home? I get worried because without her we have no money and would probably have to tell someone which I really don't want to do. I get really in my head when mum isn't around for a while because she used to be out of the house when I was younger, I'd never know if she was going to bother to come back home.

I do a pretty good job of ignoring the persistent thoughts that mum has died for the evening but, just as I go to get changed for bed, my phone starts ringing. I smile and my stomach goes funny. It's probably Andrew. I pick up my phone and it's not Andrew it's mum.

"Christopher, you need to come and pick me up." Oh my god, she's crying.

"Why?" I sigh.

"Because I'm too scared to walk home. I just want to go to bed." She says between sobs.

"Ok, where are you?" 

"I'm at the end of Richmond Road. On the end with the nice houses."

"I'll get there as soon as I can. I'm just going to wake up Claire." I say getting a jumper on.

"No! Don't bring Claire. I don't want her to see me like this."

"Fine. But only because you're about 10 minutes away."

"I'll see you in 10 minutes." She says now, a lot calmer than she was when she called me.

When I find mum shes on the sat on the pavement with her head in her hands. I quickly honk my horn and she looks at the car then gets in. We don't manage to say anything.

"I'm sorry for bothering you." She says turning the radio off.

"It's fine."

"No, it's not." She starts crying again. "I'm so shitty and you shouldn't have to do this for me. It isn't fair." Usually, I try to take no notice of these kinds of conversations because she never remembers them. 

The car journey home is just mum talking about how shitty she is and how we deserve so much better than her. I don't say anything back and make sure that she gets to bed ok when we get home. I fucking hate it when this happens because it's not like I can just let her stumble around outside when she's like this. She's clearly hysterical and although she's no help to me and never really has been it's not like things would get better if she died or got lost or something. I just wish things were different.


End file.
